An Investigation Into Teacher Questioning In Junior High School English Reading Instruction From The Perspective Of Critical Thinking

With key competency becoming a hot topic in English instruction,the quality of thinking has received increasing attention.As a part of thinking quality,critical thinking has become the focus of researchers and school teachers.In the consideration of critical thinking cultivation,the author investigates and analyzes the current status of teachers' questions which includes the frequency of questions that are oriented to critical thinking skills,the characteristics of response ways and questioning strategies from the perspective of critical thinking.The hidden reasons behind the current characteristics are also expounded.The specific research questions are as follows:1.What is the current situation of students' critical thinking cultivation through teachers' questions in junior high school reading instruction?2.What are the characteristics of teachers' questions which are oriented to cultivate critical thinking skills?3.What are the causes that lead to the above characteristics?In order to deal with the above research questions,the author uses the questionnaire and observation as instruments to analyze the general situation and the characteristics of teachers' questions.Subsequently,through the interviews with 12 teachers,teachers' performance shown in the real cases and the support of related literature,the reasons behind the characteristics are summarized.After investigation,the author finds that teachers have realized the importance of critical thinking and the feasibility of using questions to develop students' critical thinking.However,in practice,neither the quantity nor the quality of questionsdirecting at critical thinking cultivation is satisfactory.Teachers' questions don't keep balance between different critical thinking skills and dispositions.And the teaching effects of different teachers are distinguishing.In addition,teachers' use of questioning skills is relatively monotonous.They are more likely to appoint students to answer questions and prefer to use the questioning strategy of probing.Then,the author finds that internal aspects such as the teacher's theoretical knowledge accumulation,question design,text interpretation ability and teaching methods have an effect on teachers' questions.Some external aspects such as text types,student's language competence,class time and critical thinking evaluation system are also involved.Finally,according to the research findings,the author provides some suggestions for teachers as well as authorities of English instruction.With this paper,the author aims to enrich the research achievements of questioning and critical thinking in junior high school English reading instruction,and lay foundation for further research to construct a questioning model for effectively cultivating critical thinking.