On Teacher Questions In Classroom Teacher-Student Conversational Interaction

Language learning never takes place in isolation, but in context. Being a most frequent occurrence in daily major English classroom Teacher-Students (T-S) conversational interaction, teacher questions play a significant role in classroom teaching and learning. They function as dynamic discursive tools to build collaboration and to scaffold comprehension and comprehensibility (Donato, 1994;McCormick, 1997;Swain 1997) during language lessons. Previous classroom-based studies have only identified various question types, for example, closed-and open-ended questions (Barnes, 1969), display and referential questions (Long & Sato, 1983), forced-choice questions (Long, 1981), assisting and assessing questions (Tharp & Gallimore, 1988), and clarification requests (Chaudron, 1988;Gass, 1997;Pica, 1987). If, as Postman (1979) stated," all our knowledge results from questions, and question-asking is our most important intellectual tool" (P. 140), then continued research into this tool can potentially improve instruction.Foreign Language Interaction analysis (Flanders, 1970;Moskowitz, 1971, 1976) shows that teacher questions are the indirect influence on teacher talk.Two related interactionist theories can be explained for teacher questions and classroom interaction. One is social interactionist theory;the other is psycholinguistic inteactionist theory. Central to the social interactionist theories is the concept of mediation. In language classrooms, the mediation can take the form of negotiation (comprehension checks;clarification request, etc) and teacher questions etc to improve students SLA.Studying on teacher questions in classroom interaction, the thesis mainly employs social interactionist theories. According to Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching & Applied Linguistics, scaffolding means "(in language learning) the building up of a target language structure over several TURNs in aninteraction. Initially in language learning learners may be unable to produce certain structures within a single utterance, but may build them through interaction with another speaker." Scaffolding is a main strategy used in interaction. According to the functions of scaffolding (Wood et al, 1976), the thesis classifies teacher questions with six types: R, RDF, DM, MCF, FC, D questions, etc within the framework of the analysis of Wool et al. Meanwhile, the concrete teaching observations are chosen in the thesis, the teaching process of college the English teacher is videotaped, and typical 849 questions elicited by the teacher in class are recorded. The thesis analyzes the percentages of the different question types occurring in the class. Besides, to make up for the weak points of the study framework of Wood et al, the thesis introduces other meaning negotiation strategies, such as clarification requests, confirmation checks, comprehension checks, conversational adjustments and repetitions to analyze teacher question types in the classroom T-S conversational interaction.This thesis consists of six chapters, including introduction and conclusion.Chapter One is Introduction. From 1970s, Classroom interaction became the focus which was the main factor influencing SLA. Being the most frequent occurrence in daily English classroom interaction, teacher questions get much attention by the researchers. But the previous study isolated the relationship between teacher questions and classroom interaction. How to combine the two aspects is the impulse to create the thesis. This chapter also introduces the purpose and significance of the study.Chapter Two is the Review of previous study. This chapter focuses on the interdisciplinary study of classroom interaction and teacher questions abroad and at home.Chapter Three is the Theoretical Background. Two related theories support the study: psycholinguistic interactionist theories and social interactionist theories. Central to the social interactionist theories is the concept of mediation. In language classrooms, the mediation can take the form of negotiation, teacher questions, or various other kinds of teacher assistance. According to Vygotsky(1978), questions are one example of symbolic linguistic tools that semiotically mediate, assist, and scaffold mental activity during both formal and informal instructional activity. So the thesis adopts the study of the functions of scaffolding (Wood et al, 1976) which classified scaffolding functions into six types. On the basis of social interactionist theories, the thesis attempts to analyze teacher questions in classroom T-S conversatonal interaction and try to provide some suggestions on English teaching and learning.Chapter Four is Part 1 of the study. In this chapter methodology, context, class materials, participants, data collection, etc are introduced in this chapter.Chapter Five is the key part of my thesis. The thesis chooses the practical class as the study material and concretely analyzes the classification of question types according to Wood et al. Meanwhile analyzing the results of the study. In addition, to make up for the weak points of previous studies of teacher questions by Wood et al, my thesis introduces other meaning negotiation strategies related to the classroom conversational interaction such as confirmation checks, conversational adjustments and some types of repetitions and consummates the classification of teacher questions by Wood et al.Chapter Six is Conclusion. This chapter firstly attempts to indicate the influence of teacher questions on the classroom teaching. Present English teaching should pay attention to the classification of the question types and try to make the class more interactive. And then, it presents a brief summary of my study. At last, this chapter points out the limitations and further study. It is an open and systematical project to explain the implicature of teacher questions effectively. Also the combination of interactionist theories, discourse analysis, second language acquisition and various teaching theories should be considered. Classroom interaction includes many aspects. It is not enough to study it only from the analysis of teacher questions.