A Study On The Effects Of Questioning On Students’ Autonomous Learning In Secondary English Classrooms

As a main strategy in teaching, teacher questioning has been studied by many people. Forexample, Paulo Freire，a famous Brazilian educator，once said “no dialogue, no communication.The real education will not exist if there is no communication” and he also pointed out that onlyin the atmosphere of the creative and critical dialogic instruction, could the personalities of thestudents be improved. A Chinese scholar named Liu Xianguo also thought that classroomquestioning could stimulate students’ interest, guide the orientation of students’ thinking, makethe class atmosphere easy and active. What’s more, since English teaching is about language, it issure to have its own distinctive features——it is also a verbal stimuli for students to imitate. Soclassroom questioning in English class is much more important than that in other classes. Studieson teaching questioning in English classroom, both home and abroad, were mainly about theeffects of the types, the contents, and the wait-time on the output and students’ attitude tolearning but didn’t mention the relation between teacher questioning and students’ autonomouslearning. English Curriculum Standards for Compulsory Education published in2011encourages students to discover the language rules, master language knowledge and skillsgradually, adjust their own affect consistently, learn to use learning strategies and develop theability of autonomous learning, from which we can see the importance of students’ ability ofautonomous learning in English classRelying on the background of English Curriculum Reform, referring to studies onquestioning in English class and students’ autonomous learning, being supported theoretically byBruner’s Cognitive Discovery Learning Theory (1961), Maslow and Rogers’ Humanism Theory(1951), Krashen’s Input Hypothesis (1985), Swain’s Output Hypothesis (1985) and MichaelLong’s Interaction Hypothesis (1983), based on Zimmerman B’s generalizations about theelements of autonomous learning (which include learning motivation, learning methods,behavior and conditions), the researcher wants to analyze1) the influence of questioning inEnglish class on students’ learning strategies;2) if questioning in English class can promotestudents to master the contents better;3) the effects of questioning on students’ motivation.To answer the above questions,4English teachers and180students in the High SchoolAttached to Shandong Normal University were selected as subjects. And the data was selected from observations of40courses assisted with some audio-recordings and questionnaires forstudents. This paper attempts to adopt these three instruments to investigate the role of classroomquestioning, in its aspects of types, addressee(s), contents, mode, timing and teacher’s feedback,in guiding students’ autonomous learning.The survey which was made both qualitatively and quantitatively demonstrates that:1)questioning in English class is very helpful for students’ memory strategies, cognitive strategies,compensation strategies and affective strategies;2) teacher’s questioning has a positiveinfluence on students’ comprehension, especially in its aspects of types, timing and teacher’sfeedback. But the mode and the optimal time for questions are discouraged;3) as to students’learning motivation, the question types, level, timing and teacher’s feedback benefit it a lot.Meanwhile, the openness of questions and the mode can’t satisfy students’ learning motivation.Based on our research findings, English teachers should change the questioning mode, say,add much more follow–up questions, to facilitate students’ understanding and encourage themto ask questions themselves to inspire their autonomy and enthusiasm in learning.