An Investigation Of Teacher Questioning In Junior High School English Reading Class From The Perspective Of Critical Thinking

In 2022,the new English Curriculum Standards for Compulsory Education were released by the Ministry of Education,in which the importance of English core literacy was highlighted.Thinking quality is one of the core qualities of English subject.Criticism is an important aspect of thinking quality.Experts,scholars and teachers at home and abroad pay great attention to the cultivation of students’ critical thinking.In English language teaching,teacher questioning is an important tool and questioning is an effective way to improve students’ thinking,yet few researchers have explored teacher questioning from a critical thinking perspective.Therefore,this study takes the perspective of critical thinking as the starting point to study teachers’ questioning based on junior high school English reading class.The author adopts the research methodology of questionnaire,classroom observation and interview.In this study,181 students and 6English teachers from a third grade junior high school in Hohhot are selected.It mainly focuses on three research questions:(1)What is the general situation of teachers’ use of questioning to cultivate students’ critical thinking in junior high school English reading class?(2)What are the main problems of English reading class teacher questioning in junior high school from the perspective of critical thinking?(3)What are the causes of the existing problems? By combining quantitative and qualitative research,the author understands the current situation and existing problems of teachers’ questioning in junior high school English reading class under the background of critical thinking,analyzes the causes,and finally gives some suggestions and countermeasures to improve teachers’ questioning.It was found that in junior high school English reading class,the proportion of teachers’ questioning on the cultivation of different critical thinking skills was uneven.From the perspective of critical thinking,the main problems of teachers’ questioning in junior high school English reading class were as follows: from the perspective of questioning types,teachers paid more attention to the four sub-skills of inference,analysis,interpretation and explanation,and less attention to the sub-skills of evaluation and self-regulation.In terms of the response ways of questioning,teachers were more inclined to assign students to answer questions.From the perspective of questioning strategies,teachers mostly used probing strategy.After the interview,the reasons for the problems were internal and external.The internal causes were:(1)Teachers did not have a clear and comprehensive understanding of critical thinking.(2)Teachers did not pay attention to the development of students’ critical thinking in English reading classes.(3)Teachers were not fully aware of the role of questioning in the development of critical thinking.The external reasons were:(1)Students did not pay enough attention to critical thinking and their language competence was insufficient.(2)High school entrance examination pressure,limited class time.Finally,the author put forward some suggestions to improve teachers’ questioning.Suggestions for Schools:(1)Schools should invite relevant experts and scholars to conduct lectures in schools to make teachers and students aware of the importance of critical thinking.(2)Schools can set up some courses on critical thinking training,through which teachers can know how to develop students’ critical thinking in the classroom and students can also pay attention to critical thinking.(3)Schools can hold some competitions on critical thinking skills to improve students’ critical thinking skills.Suggestions for Teachers:(1)Strengthen the learning of critical thinking theory.(2)Strengthen teachers’ awareness of questioning and optimize questioning design.(3)English teachers can try their best to explore the content of the textbook.(4)Teachers can use some questioning skills based on actual situations.Suggestions for Students:(1)Students should have some understanding of critical thinking.(2)Critical thinking should be emphasized in every aspect.(3)Students can actively read some extracurricular materials.The author hopes that this study can provide some references for English teachers to cultivate students’ critical thinking.