A Comparative Study On Raising Questions Of English Teachers Between Regular And Demonstration Class In Senior High School

Raising questions in classrooms is the core of effective teaching and one of the crucial ways to cultivate students' thinking quality.Raising questions by teachers can not only checks students' understanding of the relevant content,but also provides opportunities for students to apply what they learned and gives the chances of output.It also creates the interaction between teachers and students.For the new Curriculum Standard emphases the cultivation of students' thinking quality,raising questions is becoming more important.This study focuses on the current situation of raising questions by English teachers in senior high school in terms of the following aspects:types of questions,ways of answering questions,waiting time,techniques of questioning and teachers' feedback,and the study answers the following questions:(1)What is the current situation of raising questions by English teachers in senior high school ? What problems do the English teachers have in raising questions?(2)Is there any difference between demonstration class and regular class in terms of raising questions? If so,what are the differences?(3)What suggestions can be given for teachers based on these differences?With the new Curriculum Standard,on the basis of Krashen's input hypothesis,Swain's output hypothesis,Long's interaction hypothesis and the scaffolding theory,the study observes five classes from X School in Longchang county for near four months and selects one lesson from each class for transcription.The study's instruments are classroom observation,questionnaire,interview and SPSS statistical analysis.Then the study carries out 278 students' questionnaire and 5 teachers' interviews.This study also selects five lessons from the video of the Tenth National English Teaching Demonstration in Senior High School and transcribes them into text.Then the study makes the comparative analysis.The findings of the study are as follows:(1)questions raised by teachers in regular class and demonstration class are both dominated by display questions,but the referential questions of demonstration class account for a higher proportion than that inregular class.(2)In both classes,the waiting time less than 3 seconds chosen by teachers accounts for large part,but the waiting time longer than 3 seconds of demonstration class is higher than that of regular class.(3)Chorus is the most widely used way by teachers in both classes,but the proportion of voluntary answer is quite different.(4)Prompting skill is the most widely used technique by teachers in both classes,but the proportion of probing and translation is quite different.(5)Simple praise and praise with repetition are the most widely used feedback by teachers in both classes,but there is a big difference in praise with comments and the teacher's direct correction.In regular classes,there are some problems of raising questions by English teachers:improper proportion of question types,short waiting time,uneven distribution of ways of answering questions,unspecific feedback,lack of flexibility of questioning techniques.Finally,based on the findings,some suggestions for teachers are given:improving professional competence,adjusting proportion of different questions,giving appropriate waiting time,encouraging students to answer actively,using techniques flexibly,giving concrete feedback.Hopefully,those maybe become some reference for other English teaching faculty in the future.