A Study On Questioning Strategies In English Reading Classroom In Junior High School

Reading is one important part of language skills. As English language learners, listening and reading are main input channels. Moreover, most of the time, students learn English by reading. However, students’ motivation is not high in English reading classroom. They just passively listen to the teacher’s explanation but not really participate in classroom activities. Teachers’ questioning occupies most of the time in reading classroom in traditional teaching. Moreover, many studies suggest that most of teachers’ questions are not effective, which is main factor affecting students’interest.It can not be denied that questioning is frequently used in junior high school English class. Classroom questioning, as an important communicative channel between teachers and students, plays a crucial role in the process of teaching and learning. However, whether classroom questioning is effective or not largely depends on the strategies adopted by English teacher. Therefore, the thesis tries to study the application of questioning strategies in English reading in Junior high school. And the study aims to learn about how teachers use questioning strategies in English reading class in junior high school. Based on the current situation, the author adopts some questioning strategies. Then the author tests the correlation between questioning strategies and students’ learning and tries to find out whether these questioning strategies contribute to improving students’ interest and achievement.The thesis firstly gives a brief introduction of research background, theory, and current situation at home and abroad. Reviewing related studies at home and abroad, the author raises three research questions combining with current teaching situation as follows:1. What is English teacher’s real idea about questioning strategies? How do they use questioning strategies in English reading class in junior high school?2. What is the influence of questioning strategies on students’ interest?3. How can questioning strategies affect students’ achievement?The experiment was carried out in Shenzhen Shiyan Public School. The two parallel classes in Grade7in Junior High School are participated in this experiment. Each class has45students, which is taught by the same teacher. The experiment uses three research instruments including interview, questionnaire and test and lasts for three month. Through the interview with teachers, the researcher learns about the current situation about the application of questioning strategies in reading classroom in junior high school. Based on the interview, the researcher proposes four main questioning strategies combining with related literature reading, that is, planning strategies, questioning strategies, adjustment strategies and feedback strategies. Then the researcher applies those questioning strategies to the experiment class, while uses traditional questioning methods in the control class.After the experiment, the second questionnaire shows that the students’ interest in the experiment class is highly increased. The data of the test is analyzed by means of SPSS16.0. The results indicate that reading scores of post test of the experiment class are higher than the scores of the control class.The results of study prove that the application of questioning strategies stimulate students’ reading interest and improve their reading competence. Meanwhile, students’ English learning ability is improved. It is hoped that the study can provide valuable reference for English teachers both from theoretical and practical aspects.