The Effect Of Teacher Questioning On Students’ Classroom Participation In English Class In Junior High Schools

Teacher questioning is the important source of students’ language input.The quality of it will not only influence the quality of classroom teaching but also the interaction between teachers and students.Effective teacher questioning can increase students’ learning interest and motivate students’ participation in classroom interaction,developing students’ thinking quality and comprehensive language ability.And therefore,the study of teacher questioning and students’ classroom participation in English class in junior high school can help us know the current situation and problems of teacher questioning and its effect on students’ classroom participation,which is of great significance to improve the quality of English teaching in junior high schools.Based on the Input Hypothesis,Output Hypothesis and Interaction Hypothesis,this study adopts classroom observation,students’ questionnaire,teachers’ and students’ interview and make a quantitative and qualitative analysis of English reading class lectured by two English teachers in junior high school.This study explores the following questions:(1)what are the effects of the types of teacher questioning on students’ classroom participation in English reading class in junior high schools?(2)what are the effects of the strategies of teacher questioning on students’ classroom participation in English reading class in junior high schools?The results of the study shows that:(1)teachers prefer to use chorus-answering and nominating ways in English reading class and students seldom volunteer to answer questions;(2)teachers ask more display questions than referential questions,and students respond to display questions more actively,while referential questions can prompt students’ oral output;(3)all of the questioning strategies used by teachers can prompt students’ classroom participation and oral output.Teachers often use prompting and probing strategies but seldom adopt redirecting strategy,while redirecting strategy can prompt students to produce more oral output.This thesis would like to put forward some suggestions to improve the effectiveness of teacher questioning after studying the current situation of teacher questioning and its effect on students’ classroom participation:(1)teachers should change their beliefs and encourage students to volunteer to answer the questions;(2)teachers should balance the ratio of display questions and referential questions and connect the referential questions with students’ reallife to motivate students to answer referential questions more actively;(3)teachers should use different questioning strategies appropriately and increase the frequency of redirecting strategy to motivate students’ participation in classroom interaction.