A Survey On The Application Of The Effective Questions To He English Reading In Senior High School

Since R.Stevens made the first study on questioning in1912, many similartheoretical and empirical studies related to questioning have emerged. English readingplays a great part in English learning, and teachers use questions to lead students inthe reading process. Questioning is an effective way to teach reading and control theclass, which has a direct impact on the effectiveness of English reading and thedemocratic relationship between students and teachers. Therefore, it is significant tostudy the current application, existing problems and measures of improvement of theeffective questions in senior high school English reading.The methods of questionnaire survey and classroom observation are used in thisresearch. The author found two theoretical foundations for this research after makinga detailed literature review, and designed a questionnaire for the participant studentsin order to know the current situation of the use of effective questions to Englishreading. At the same time, with the aid of a classroom observation scale designed byGood and Brophy, this thesis analyzes the videos and recordings of the Englishreading of five teachers.The results and analysis of the experiment show that the different types ofquestions are not in proportionate use. For example, teachers tend to expect theanswer of the whole class instead of that of individual student, or they would prefer toanswer the questions by themselves, which is not very helpful in encouraging thestudents to involve. And to the students’ answer, the teacher’s feedback is either tooexaggerated or too ambiguous. These problems result in the students’ incorrectjudgment and low satisfaction with the English reading class.The thesis therefore offers the following strategies and advice. First, teachersshould make the best of every kind of question to stimulate students’ activity. Second,they need to design heuristic questions, but not only leading questions. And teachersshould encourage the students to ask questions and find answers to their ownquestions. These measures enable the questioning to be more effective. This research intends to improve the effective questioning of English teachersand to enrich in a degree the studies on English reading in Senior High schools inChina.