The Application And Effect Of Teachers' Questioning In College EFL Class

There exist two different cases in foreign language learning: one is to learn the targetlanguage in the place where it is used as the tool for communication. Language learnerswill be immerged in the target language in daily life. Usually this case is called "secondlanguage" environment;the other case is the opposite of the above-mentioned one, whichis to learn the target language mainly in the classroom as a formal subject. In most time oftheir daily life the learners cannot find the use of the target language for communicativepurpose. Usually this case is called "foreign language" environment (Yang, 2003). The vastmajority of Chinese English learners are staying in the latter case. Therefore, teachers'teaching activities in the classroom are significant in learners' learning process and teachertalk is the main source that the learners would input for communicative purpose. A surveyshows that the questioning-answering activities are 70% of the classroom talk (Tsui,1985). It can be seen that questioning is a primary pattern of classroom interaction.Teachers can enlighten students and organize them to participate in communicativeactivities by questioning. Simultaneously, students can grasp the opportunities to improvetheir learning by answering questions. However, the researcher observed that questioninghadn't been applied effectively in practice. The purposes of this thesis are to find out thecurrent status of questioning application and find the existing problems through classroomobservation, questionnaires and interviews. Suggestions will be put forward in order tosolve the problems. It is expected that the questioning which is the most often useddiscourse pattern in class should make a full play in language teaching and improveclassroom teaching quality.This thesis is divided into five chapters and deals with the following problemsrespectively:Chapter One discusses the linguistic and psychological background knowledge ofquestioning. Some specific items are listed for survey in Chapter Three and Chapter Four.There are three discourse patterns in questioning activities: IRF( Initiation-Response-Feedback discourse pattern), I₁R₁(I_nR_n)F (Initiation1-Response1-(Initiationn-Responsen)-Feedback discourse pattern) and IR₁F₁(R_nF_n) (Initiation-Response1-Feedback1-(Responsen-Feedbackn) discourse pattern). Krashen's Input Hypothesis indicates thatteachers' questionings make students exposed to the target language, in this way, to inputthe target language;Swain's Output Hypothesis indicates that students answer teachers'questions to output the target language. Both input and output of target language arehelpful for learning. Long's Interactive Hypothesis suggests that in communication whenone part can not understand the other part, the devices of negotiation of meaning such ascomprehension checks, confirmation checks and clarification requests can move theobstacles to make the communication going on. The appropriate application of the threedevices can make learners have more rights to output. Other functions of questioning are tostimulate students and to keep them interested about what is being taught. Students canconstruct their knowledge with teachers' questioning. It is the very viewpoint advocated byConstructivism. Students should take the initiative to explore and "find out" and thenconstruct their knowledge with teachers' aids. Constructivism emphasizes the students'learning instead of teachers' teaching.Chapter Two introduces the application of questioning in language teaching. It is aprimary means to elicit a topic, to teach intensive teaching class and to organize teachingphases. The application of questioning strategies aims to make questioning more effectiveto fulfill the tasks.Chapter Three deals with the survey on the basis of theoretical knowledge. First, theresearcher listed five research questions: the ratios of display questions and referentialquestions;the ratios of three discourse patterns (IRF, I1R1(InRn)F, IR1F1(RnFn));the ratiosof three devices of negotiation of meaning (comprehension checks, confirmation checksand clarification requests);the effect on students' output which learning causes indisplay-question-dominant class and referential-question-dominant class;the differentevaluation formed by students and teachers respectively on the same questioning strategies.Some factors in the survey, such as subjects, survey devices, data collection and analysiswere introduced in detail in the following part in this chapter.In Chapter Four the researcher analyses and discusses the results of the research. Theclassroom observation shows display questions are more often posed than referentialquestions in current classroom teaching;IRF are more frequently employed than the othertwo discourse patterns and comprehension checks surpasses the other two devices ofnegotiation of meaning. The above-mentioned features will do students no good having theright to output or to improve their communicative competence. Students studying inreferential-question-dominant classes share more chances to output target language thanthose in display-question-dominant classes. It is inevitable that more errors occur withmore output. From the results of questionnaires, some questioning strategies, such asnominating after questioning, are highly evaluated by students and employed frequently byteachers at the same time;however, some, such as wait-time, are responded to differently.The researcher compares the difference and tries to find out reasons to explain it.Chapter Five discusses the practical suggestions on the basis of the previous analysis.On one side, teachers should employ questioning strategies in questioning effectively;onthe other side, students should be encouraged by teachers to pose questions. What's more,learner autonomy should become an emphasis attracting teachers' attention because learnerautonomy is helpful to make the students become the center of the learning. Finally, theresearcher suggests teachers focus on their professional development. Only in this way canteachers perfect their theoretical knowledge and succeed in practice.