A Study On Teacher's Questions In Classroom Interaction

Most learners of EFL learn English from teachers in classrooms. In recent years, classroom interaction has drawn increasing attention in L2 research. The background of this lies in the fact that"second language learning is a highly interactive process"(Richards and Lockhart, 1994:138) and"the quality of this interaction is thought to have a considerable influence on learning"(Ellis, 1985. qtd. in Richards and Lockhart, 1994:138). Teacher's questioning and students'answering constitute a very significant aspect of classroom teaching. It is not only an important form of classroom interaction, but an effective way of teaching and learning a second language as well. Teacher's questions in classroom interaction have been examined fully abroad since the seventies of the last century. However, in China, there has been a lack of attention given to systematic research in this field. The present thesis attempts to explore teacher's questions used in the senior high school EFL classroom. Through an empirical study, the thesis aims to examine how teachers use questions in classroom teaching, and the efficiency of teacher's questions to classroom interaction. It mainly focuses on the following aspects: 1) the types of questions frequently used by EFL teachers; 2) The types of question modifications frequently used by EFL teachers; 3) The frequency of answer-seeking strategies used by EFL teachers and the wait-time; 4) Distribution of teacher's questions. In addition, this paper attempts to find out factors that influence the effect of teacher's questions. Some beneficial suggestions are put forward that teachers should be more aware of the effects of questions on classroom interaction and consciously monitor their questioning behavior to reinforce classroom interaction and thereby to promote language learning.This thesis is divided into five chapters:Chapter one is a brief introduction of the whole thesis. Firstly, the author presents a definition for teacher's questions, and then the author states the significance of the present study, including the importance of teacher's questions and the reasons for choosing the topic. Chapter two is a brief review of the research on teacher's questions, where several related concepts are compared, and the related major studies and findings both abroad and at home are introduced in detail, based on which it is found that the research conducted in Chinese EFL classroom of senior high school is insufficient. Chapter three is about the theoretical background of teacher's questions, in which psycholinguistic interactionist theories and social interactionist theories are introduced. The fourth chapter, which is the central part of the research, describes research methodology employed in this empirical study. The author conducted a questionnaire survey and, observed, tape-recorded and transcribed eight senior high school EFL teachers'classes. The data obtained were calculated, the results were analyzed and discussed.The following major findings have been generalized after statistical analysis. Generally, the quality of teacher's questions is not satisfactory. Firstly, higher-level questions and referential questions are seldom raised in class, and most of the questions focus on language form rather than communication value, besides, most of the questions do not focus on eliciting students'answering in greater syntactical complexity; Secondly, the question modification devices employed by the teachers are not varied, for most of them take the form of repetition which is, unfortunately, the least effective way of successfully eliciting answers from students. Thirdly, teachers usually give the students a short time to respond to the questions and only about one tenth of the students have chances during specific solicits to answer the questions. Lastly, teacher's questions are often raised in over-simplified English, which can't provide students with more comprehensible input and thus scarcely elicit students'comprehensible output.The last chapter summarizes this thesis. Based on the results of the present study, implications and suggestions about teacher's questions are drawn for high school English teachers.