A Study On Teacher Questions In Junior High School English Classes

Asking questions in class is an important way of classroom teaching.It is the teacher-student exchange of information and emotional exercise. Since ancient times, questions are highly valued by foreign educators. Good questions increase teacher-student exchange. They can stimulate interest in learning, inspire students'thinking, help them to express. Therefore, the effect of teaching depends largely on the teachers questions. Socrates' "midwife technique" advocate the conversation method to help students to acquire knowledge, he never told the students the conclusions directly, but by the particular facts of the comparison, guide students to draw their own conclusions. They are still important. Through the study, Barack found that the core of secondary school teaching is teachers questions first, students answer, then students respond (Gao Yan, Wang Tan, 1995:26).Studies on teacher questions at home and abroad reveal that: theoretically, research has mainly focused on the functions and techniques of teacher questions; while empirically, such research has been focusing on the number, classification, teacher's waiting time and teacher feedback. Comparatively, studies on teacher questions in China are few in number, and further empirical research is needed.This study is based on a one-year investigation on six English teachers from experimental school of Changchun Development Zone. Its aim is to answer the following questions: (1),What are the types of English teacher questions in the classes observed? What kinds of influence do these question type have on learner output? (2),What's the relevance between the language attitude of the teachers and the language output of the students? To answer these questions, the author recorded 5 lessons of each subject teacher. Based on the recording and in-class written records of observation, a statistical analysis is made on the types of questions, questions of distribution, and teacher's attitude of language.The results of the study showed that: (1),54% of the questions teachers raised are display questions. Other types of questions are open-ended questions, divergent questions and reference questions. Compared with the display quesition, such problems require students to have a strong abstract thinking, analyzing and problem-solving skills. Whereas display questions are questions or exercises that students can find ready-made answers in the textbooks. Such questions are not likely to promote students'communicative competence and thinking capacity-building. Teachers'too many use of display questions restrict student's language output. (2),Attitude of teachers in raising questions are found to be closely related to output of the students. Students do not like the teacher's stiff and threatening tone of questions which creates the distance between students and teachers. In such a classroom atmosphere, students are unable to complete communicative tasks, and their output is impeded.This study shows that: Teachers should change their concepts. They should carry out the "learner-centered" teaching idea and encourage students to participate in communicative activities. The appropriate questions create a good, authentic language atmosphere and environment for students. They improve the quality of English teaching. The limitations of this paper lie mainly in the limited number of research subjects and the need for further exploration of the research questions.