A Study On Teachers’ Questioning In English Reading Class Of Senior High School

Classroom questioning has always been one of the most frequently used strategies in the senior high school. Teachers use questions to attract students’attention, to educe them to think, to stimulate them to make responses. to check their understanding and to evaluate their learning. Effective questions can motivate students’learning interest, encourage them to think and lead them to be creative and logical. Moreover, effective questions in reading class can improve students’reading skills and develop good habits. But as a matter of fact, not all teachers’questions are effective. The present thesis attempts to explore the present state of teacher questioning in reading based on the theories of Socio-Constructivism and Output Hypothesis. Socio-Constructivism claims that knowledge is derived and maintained by individuals with the help of interactions. And Output Hypothesis emphasizes learners need appropriate opportunities to produce language. By questioning, teachers provide chances to help students deal with problems and increase language output.The present study investigates five aspects of questioning:the proportion of reading classroom questions, the distribution of questioning, the wait-time in questioning, teachers’feedbacks and questioning strategies. To do the research, five teachers and two-hundred and sixty students from a senior school in Dong Ying City are involved in this study. The teachers’classes are recorded and transcribed to make analysis. Meanwhile, five teachers are interviewed to make up for the classroom observations. Moreover, questionnaires on students and teachers are also used in the thesis. By using these instruments, the present study aims to discover whether teachers give effective questions in the reading class. Based on this, some suggestions are provided in the present thesis.Through classroom observations, interviews and questionnaires, the main findings are as follows:First, display questions, closed questions are employed more than referential questions and open questions. Moreover, questions of literal comprehension and questions involving reorganization or reinterpretation are used more frequently than questions for inferences and questions for personal response. Second, as far as the distribution of questioning is concerned, nominating and chorus answering are used more frequently than the volunteering and teacher self-answering. Third, wait-time is not adequate for students. Four, teachers always give two kinds of feedback to students’answers:the positive and the negative feedback. All in all, teachers have tolerant attitudes towards students’incorrect answers, so they use more positive feedback than negative ones. Five, prompting and probing strategies are used more by teachers when questioning while repeating and self-explaining strategies are relatively less.Providing effective questions involves the appropriate proportions of question types, impartial distribution, appropriate feedback and reasonable questioning strategies. Since effective questioning plays an indispensable role in English reading class, teachers are supposed to design suitable questions to empower students to construct knowledge and produce more language output. With regard to this, some suggestions are given in the thesis.