A Study Of Teacher Questioning In Senior English Reading Class Based On The Theory Of Cooperative Learning

Cooperative learning is a kind of creative teaching theory, which is adopted widely in many countries in the world. It is a breakthrough and complement to traditional teaching mode, and more and more teachers have used it in the English class. Teacher questioning plays an important role in English class. Effective teacher questioning enables students to obtain information maximally, and helps the students to have better and effective output. But how to combine teacher questioning with cooperative learning? How to question effectively based on the theory of cooperative learning in English class? There are few studies on this topic at home and abroad.Based on the researches of former scholars’, the study first has an overview of the theory of cooperative learning, then reviews the study of cooperative learning in Yan’an Senior High school, and finally takes five English teachers and 300 students as the research subjects. The research tools, recording, classroom observation, questionnaire and teacher interviews are adopted. The research material is selected from Module 2, Book 5 of Senior High English published by Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press. Through analyzing teacher questioning in the aspects of number, classification, waiting-time, the answer forms of students and teachers’ feedback, the research studies what the changes are and whether there exist some problems in the teacher questioning in English reading class in Yan’an High School, based on the theory of cooperative learning. Furthermore, the author explores what kind of strategies are more effective to promote cooperative learning and improve the students’ interests and skills of language learning. Thus, it is hopeful that the study will be of help and do some contributions to the teacher questioning in Yan’an Senior High and the nearby schools.The results of the study show that the number of display questions is frequently used than referential questions, which is unsuitable to arouse and enhance students’ interest in learning English. Some of the questions designed by teachers are not distinguished clearly in level and teachers lack the sense and tact of devising feasible and appropriate questions. Generally speaking,the waiting time for students’ response and the waiting time after students’ answer are both too short. The distribution of the answering form of students is reasonable. The answers after group of discussion accounts for 22.2%, which conforms to the principles of the new curriculum and the theory of cooperative learning. And other forms of answers distribute uniformly. What is more, there is not enough teachers’ feedback, and the feedback of the teachers’ is simple and boring, which cannot draw students’ attention and encourage the students. Based on the reality and the existing problems, the author puts forward five feasible suggestions.