Effective Teachers' Questioning In Intensive Reading Classroom Of College English

Teachers'questioning has always been in the forefront of educational research. Effective questioning can stimulate students'interest in knowledge, can push them to think and make themselves"find"out the rules. But in fact it is true that not all teachers'questions are effective. The present study attempts to analyze effective teachers'questioning in current college English classroom on the basis of the output hypothesis and constructivism. Swain's output hypothesis claims what learners need is the opportunities to produce the target language. The learner's output has an independent and indispensable role to play. Constructivism emphasizes that knowledge is essentially constructed by individuals in specific conditions during helpful interactions, rather than transmitted mechanically from others. By questioning teachers can set up a proper context between the new knowledge and the old one. Teachers who have more knowledge than students can act as a facilitator to enlighten their thinking, to help students solve problems and organize learning activities.This research is to investigate four non-English major's intensive reading courses at Jilin University and Changchun Industrial University in the way of recording, questionnaire and observation. The purpose is to find out whether teachers provide effective questioning in terms of types of questions, wait time, feedback and questioning strategies. Meanwhile, the related reasons that influence teacher'questioning effectiveness are analyzed and some suggestions are made to improve questioning quality. The findings are as follows:Similar to previous study, more display questions are asked than referential questions and wait time is still insufficient. Students make different responses to the two types of questions. They perform more actively and express more freely in comfortable atmosphere when asked referential questions compared to display questions. However, it is found that the total number of display questions has decreased than before and the ratio of referential questions is increasing. Wait time is still not enough for students to think over questions. Students could answer more naturally and completely when given longer time. As to feedback and strategy there are some differences from previous results: teachers could provide positive feedback with comments and repetition instead of simple praise; the proper adoption of questioning strategies helps students understand questions deeply. Although it is less effective in types of questions and wait time, while, on the whole teachers'questioning can be considered effective in this study. According to the research it is indicated that teachers have come to understand the importance of effective questioning and have improved professional skills gradually in the process of educational reform.The effectiveness of classroom questioning relies on the good contents of questions, effective feedback, sufficient wait time and questioning strategies to a large extent. Since questioning is an important technique in teaching, teachers, as both a communicator and a mediator, are supposed to use questions to offer opportunities for language learners to help students produce language output and construct knowledge.