A Comparative Study On Classroom Questioning Between Native And Non-native English-speaking Teachers In English Majors' Listening And Speaking Class

Classroom questioning is the foundation of classroom interaction and it is a main source for teachers to communicate and exchange ideas with students.Therefore,it is an important teaching skill that teachers should master.Classroom questioning provide students with opportunities to express feelings and exchange ideas,induce language output of students,develop their thinking skills and communicative competence.Through questioning,teachers can check the acquisition of students and help students develop their own views.This study attempts to make a comparison of the similarities and differences of questioning patterns between native English-speaking teachers and non-native English-speaking teachers in English majors' listening and speaking class,and to explore the questioning patterns students and teachers believe can facilitate listening and speaking.After comparison,on the basis of complementary advantages,it is hoped to seek a better questioning technique and find out better questioning patterns to help students with their studies and promote teachers' teaching abilities.The subjects of this study are 138 students of listening and speaking class,as well as four teachers—two native English-speaking teachers and two non-native English-speaking teachers In the study,altogether 16 periods of class are observed.Classroom questioning in this study is discussed in six layers: question number and type,wait-time,questioning distribution,ways of eliciting answers,teachers' modification of question and teachers' feedback.Through the methods of classroom observation,questionnaire and interview,the following conclusions are summarized.Firstly,native English-speaking teachers(NESTs)and non-native English-speaking teachers(NNESTs)have similarities as well as differences in classroom questioning in listening and speaking class.NESTs provide more questions in class than NNESTs;NESTs provide more wait-time than NESTs;both NESTs and NNESTs try to give all the students equal chance to answer questions;nominating is the most predominant way to answer a question for NESTs and NNESTs;both NESTs and NNESTs resort toa variety of methods to modify questions;both NESTs and NNESTs would like to give students more positive feedback,but NESTs focus more on pronunciation errors and ignore most grammar errors,while NNESTs pay more attention to vocabulary errors and grammar errors.Secondly,the reasons of the differences are mainly due to different language backgrounds,different teaching principles,different knowledge backgrounds as well as their different social environments between NESTs and NNESTs.Thirdly,teachers' and students' views reach an agreement—they all hold positive attitudes towards classroom questioning.Based on the findings of the research,some pedagogical implications on classroom questioning are put forward.NESTs and NNESTs have their respective advantages,so they should often communicate with each other and complement each other's advantages to improve their teaching techniques.At first,teachers should pay attention to the research of question classification in order to achieve the best teaching results.Moreover,teachers should cover all the students to participate in classroom questioning activities.In addition,teachers should master a variety of questioning modification techniques and encourage all the students to express themselves in class.At last,teachers should combine positive feedback with negative feedback and make a balance between them.