A Study On Thinking-oriented Question Design In Junior High School English Reading Instruction

Thinking quality is one of the significant components of English key competencies,which reflects the mental characteristics of English subjects.As reading class is of great importance for the cultivation of students’ thinking quality,it becomes an urgent task to design effective questions to develop thinking quality during reading instructions.The study sheds light on the current situation of teachers’ question design in junior high school reading classes from the perspective of cultivating thinking quality.By adopting methods including observation,questionnaires and interviews,the study aims to answer the following research questions:1)What is the situation of using different types of questions to cultivate students’ thinking quality in junior high school English reading classes?2)What are the questioning strategies adopted by teachers through question design in English reading classes?3)What is teachers’ understanding of question design in terms of cultivating thinking quality? And what are their attitudes?Applying Bloom’s Taxonomy as a theoretical framework,the study observes and analyzes 10 reading classes in junior high school.Along with students’ questionnaires and interviews with 5 English teachers,the study examines teachers’ use of question types,questioning strategies and their attitudes.The research findings are shown as follows: In junior high school reading instructions,the frequency of using different levels of questions is unbalanced,as teachers pay less attention to high-level questions;teachers can make use of diversified questioning strategies but they prefer probing and redirecting;teachers hold inadequate cognition of thinking quality and question design,and they have many deficiencies in practical teaching,which is restricted by external factors.Finally,based on the findings above,the study puts forward suggestions and expectations for thinking-oriented question design in reading instruction.