An Exploration Of English Teachers’ Belief Through Classroom Questions

The new curriculum for fundamental eduation in China (2001, Depantment of Eduation)requires the teachers in high schools to become researchers of classroom teaching. It meansthe teachers do not only need to understand the basic theories about language, languagelearning, language teaching, teachers’ professional development, but also to develop their ownpersonal understanding of language, language learning, language teaching and teachers’professional development in teaching practice through their classroom interaction. Thepersonal understanding or knowing-in-action directly affects their decision-making in theclassroom. Teachers with different understandings might choose different contents to teachand different learning goals for their students. Teachers promote student learning and developtheir professional development through classroom interaction in teaching pracice. Soclassroom teaching becomes the object of studying teachers, students and curriculum. So theclassroom questions are the focus of the studies of classroom teaching.This research mainly adopts the “multiple case” qualitative research approach and“discourse analysis” to investigate the two excellent teachers’ ways and contents of classroomquestions in Hai Nan Province, attempting to explain how and why they develop differentunderstandings about language, language learning and language teaching. The research alsodiscuses the relationship among understanding about language, language learning andlanguage teaching and explores teachers’ different understandings impacts on theirprofessional development.Seeking answers to the following questions become the focus ofthis study: Can these classroom questions reflect different teachers’ understandings aboutlanguage and language learning? How do the ways and the contents of classroom questionsreflect different understandings? To what extent can different understandings promote theirprofessional development?In this study, the discussing framwork derives from the induction and analysis of relatedliterature about “language classroom questions” and “language teachers’ personal theories”studied by experts and scholars in and out of China. The study might explain and describe theEnglish teachers’ behavior and their personal understandings, which may provide a theoreticalexplanation on the professional denvelopment and provide a reference for English teachers inteaching practice.Findings in this research lead to the conclusion: teachers’ different ways and contents ofquestions reflect their different understandings about language and language learning.Forexample, the teachers with the view of transferring knowledge tend to ask low-level questions,which may limit students’ participation.In fact, English teachers’ belief mainly concludes theview of language and the view of language learning. Teachers’ personal understandings directly guide them to make different dicisions(eg.when to ask questions, how to askquestions) and those dicisions or choices may influnce learning content, students’ cogonitivestyles, their ways and proess of reflction. Therefore, this study has provided importantimplications for English teachers: they can adapt and use discourse analysis to investigatetheir own personal understandings about language and language learning. In this way, theycan promote their professional development and effectiveness of classroom throughbottom-up training.