Promoting Classroom Interaction By Asking Effective Questions

It is widely acknowledged that interaction plays an important role in second language acquisition and the commonest and easiest way teachers use to stimulate and sustain interaction is questioning. Questioning, as an important constituent of teacher talk in classroom context, functions not only as input for students, but also an opportunity for them to produce output and receive negative feedback. As a result, teachers' questioning has drawn considerable attention from researchers and teachers for several years. This is a tentative study that attempts to make an investigation of teachers' questioning patterns in English classes and its effect on classroom interaction from the following five aspects: question type, wait time, distribution of questions, the ways questions are answered and feedback, thus to identify the problems and provide suggestions accordingly.The thesis consists of five parts. Part One is the introductory chapter where I try to present the significance of the study by giving two contrast examples of a typical classroom conversation between a teacher and a student and their effects on classroom interaction. Part Two makes a review about the positive effect of interaction on second language acquisition in both naturalistic and classroom setting, thus educing that questioning, the commonest way teachers use to initiate and sustain classroom interaction, plays an important role in second language acquisition. In Part Three, the focus is on teachers' questions in interactive classrooms: their functions, types and some questioning strategies. Previous researches will also be reviewed here. An empirical investigation will be conducted in Part Four. By classroom observation and data analysis, a survey of teachers' questioning patterns in English classes and its effect on classroom interaction will be presented. The problems existing will be discussed from the aspects of language teaching and learning environment, purpose of questioning, teachers and learners factors and suggestions will be made to teachers for reference. According to what has been analyzed and studied in the previous chapters, the last part makes a conclusion and points out the limits of this study.