A Study Of Questioning In Junior High School English Reading Class Based On Thinking Quality

Classroom questioning refers to the question designing and teacher-student interaction based on the learning content and students situation in classroom teaching,which plays an important role in junior middle school English reading teaching,especially in cultivating students' thinking quality.The Standard of General English Curriculum for High Schools(2017 Edition)stipulates that thinking quality is one of the key competences,which refers to the logical,critical,and creative ability and level.This thesis mainly study critical aspects of thinking quality.With the development of times,the requirements for students critical thinking have been increasingly high.Reasonable questioning and feedback can stimulate students to think,so as to realize the teaching goals of cultivating students' critical thinking ability.This study intends to make an in-depth investigation of the status quo of teachers' questioning in English reading class and the junior high school students critical thinking,aiming at making teachers realize the importance of teachers questioning on the cultivation of students' critical thinking ability and making teachers be willing to take the initiative to take part in relevant training programs so as to find suitable methods to develop students' critical thinking ability.Based on Bloom's Educational Goal Taxonomy Theory,Interaction Hypothesis,and Constructivist Theory,this study made an investigation among 40 English teachers and 144 seventh graders in X Middle School in Yantai City,by using questionnaires and interviews.In addition,classroom observations were carried out in three classes of Grade Seven.The research questions are as follows:(1)What is the status quo of junior high school English teachers' questioning in English reading class(teachers' recognition,question types,questioning methods and strategies,etc.)?(2)What is the general situation of junior high school students' critical thinking ability?(3)How do students recognize teachers' questioning in English reading class?The major findings of this study are as follows:(1)English teachers have a certain degree of recognition of cultivating students' critical thinking ability through classroom questioning,but most teachers do not understand the specific aspects embedded in critical thinking and rarely design referential and evaluative questions.The type of question that are most frequently used by teachers is display question.In addition,most teachers would ask students to answer questions by nominating individual student or in chorus,on the contrary,random questioning and voluntary answering are rarely used.The feedback with comments and students' self-correction methods are seldom used.(2)According to the findings of this study,the critical thinking ability of junior high school students is not optimistic.In generous,the critical thinking tendency of these students is contradictory,and they are infirm of holding their own opinions and cannot determine the things they actually think.On some issues,they show strong critical thinking tendency,but other issues,their critical thinking tendency is rather undetermined.The critical thinking shown by the students in the seven dimensions is not strong enough,especially the analytical ability,systematic ability,thirst for knowledge and self-confidence in critical thinking,so one of our educational goal is to strengthen the cultivation of students' critical thinking.(3)Students agree that many teachers do not pay much attention to the expression of students' personal views,but instead they are more concerned about students' mastery and understanding of the reading texts at linguistic level.In addition,most students are interested in the questions raised by the teacher in the reading class,but they hold that these questions are not conducive to the development of their critical thinking ability,because the type of question that are most frequently used by teachers is display question and teachers rarely raise referential and evaluative questions,which is not challenging.According to the results and findings of this research,the author puts forward some question types and questioning methods,so as to optimize the questioning in English reading class.In addition,expect this study can provide practical guidance to the questioning in the junior high school English reading class.