A Study On English Teacher Questioning Technique In Senior High Vocational Schools

Nowadays,"The Automatic Learning","Learn How to Learn" and "The Research Learning" has gradually become the main theme of education.Classroom questioning teaching is considered as one of the effective teaching techniques.It can change teachers mind towards education,enlarge their relevant knowledge of questioning,and help them get correct and positive experiences towards the processes and consequences of questioning.Through a great many of interactions and dialogues,students may assimilate teachers' concepts or ways of thinking to promote their ability of learning.The most basic means of the interaction and dialogue is teachers' classroom questioning.English teaching is an important part of vocational education. With the increasing of socio-economic activities and cross-cultural activities,the students of Senior High Vocational School(SHVS) are required to have high English level and abilities.Actually,low English level,depressed classroom atmosphere,students' poor English thinking ability is widespread in SHVS.As we all know,classroom questioning is not only the main method of communication between teachers and students,but also the means of promoting students' thinking ability. Knowing what students are learning,and how to enhance the efficiency of classroom learning will help teachers obtain teaching purposes.Thus, people have been focusing on questioning teaching in recent years.The purpose of the thesis is to study appropriate techniques of questioning teaching,and improve the quality of English teaching in English classroom discourse in Senior High Vocational Schools(SHVS).Based on constructivism,the study was conducted in South China Business Trade Vocational School in Guangzhou where the author works. She adopted a naturalistic approach and a qualitative research method (Hitchcock & Hughes,1995) for eight continuous weeks.Five English teachers and thirty students in Business English Department of Grade One participated in the study.In the study,the author put forward three research questions:1.What are the levels of questions that teachers often pose to their students during lessons? 2.How do teachers use the way and method of posing questioning in an English classroom? 3.How do students interpret questions posed by their teachers?The lessons observed were taped or copied by the author.Verbal transcripts of classroom discourse were analyzed interpretively. Additionally,the author interviewed the five English teachers individually and had focus group interviews to the thirty volunteering students in Business English Department of Grade One.The thesis is made up of four parts.Chapter One,the author states theories on classroom discourse,classroom interaction,and teachers questioning.Chapter Two,the author gives a brief introduction to constructivism,exploring its definition and value in teacher education.A table shows us the differences between traditional questioning teaching and questioning teaching based on constructivism.Chapter Three,the author conducts a study adopting naturalistic approach and qualitative research method to investigate questioning in the natural setting of the classroom.The data collected shows that:1,Questioning is used as the prerogative of teachers in English classroom in SHVS.2,English teachers prefer to put forward low-level questions,etc.And Chapter Four, the author expounds several techniques to improve the quality of questioning teaching in SHVS.A teacher plays a role as an organizer,a guidance during the whole process of teaching,making use of collaborative learning,classroom evaluation,and questioning techniques based on constructivism,to promote students' initiative,enthusiasm and creativity,and enable students to achieve the learning purposes.