A Study Of Post-graduate English Classroom Questioning

Classroom questioning,an important means which teachers apply to stimulate students'language output,is one of the main patterns for teacher-student interaction and plays a very important role in classroom teaching.However,the previous researches on the teachers'classroom questioning mainly focus on the description of the teachers' questioning characteristics,there are relatively few studies on post-graduate English teachers' questioning and students' attitudes towards it.Therefore,based on constructivism and output hypothesis,this thesis investigates the post-graduate English teachers' classroom questioning and the students' attitude towards teacher questioning via the classroom observation,questionnaires and interviews.In the present study,the author observed ten English teachers'classes in Wuhan University,and tried to identify and analyze the problems existing in their questioning patterns.Further suggestions are also provided based on the analysis.After classroom observation,the author also asked the students to fill in the questionnaires.The interviews with ten students were also conducted in order to understand the students' attitude and needs for the teacher questioning.The interviews with teachers were designed to find out the reasons for their questioning behavior in class.This thesis mainly adopts descriptive qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis.Through the analysis of the empirical data,the present study has the following findings:1)In the majority of the teachers' classes,there are more display questions than referential questions.However,the students expect that teachers ask more referential questions.2)In the respect of the way questions answered,teachers like asking volunteers to answer questions most,which is also the way students prefer.3)The questioning strategy which teachers apply most is the self-explaining,and the students prefer the questions with prompting strategy.4)Teachers' wait-time after each question is usually less than 3 seconds.Students expect teachers to prolong wait-time in order that they can think about the question to a full extent.5)Teachers usually offer students positive feedback,which is simple and mechanical.Students expect that teachers give more positive feedback with detailed explanation and comments.Based on the results of the study,the author discusses the effective ways of post-graduate English teachers' classroom questioning.Teachers need to raise more referential questions and keep an appropriate proportion of each kind of question to arouse students' enthusiasm and increase students' oral production;They may ask volunteers to answer questions and should also consider other students' needs for answering questions at the same time;Teachers should wait more time after each question,use proper questioning strategies and offer feedback with explanation and comments in detail.There are some shortcomings of teacher questioning existing in post-graduate English classes.According to the findings,the author provides some constructive suggestions on teacher development of teaching theories as well as teaching practices.This thesis expects that teachers could raise questions in a more effective way,stimulate students'language output and English learning motivation,and improve the post-graduate English teaching effect.