A Comparative Study Of Classroom Questioning Between Novice And Expert Teachers In English Reading Teaching In Junior High School

As an important component of classroom teaching,classroom questioning is a significant means for establishing interaction between teachers and students.Teachers' classroom questioning in English reading teaching mainly refers to the questions purposefully asked by teachers to check and guide students' reading comprehension,so as to encourage students to participate in classroom activities actively.Optimizing classroom questioning can better stimulate students' interest in English learning and thus improve teaching effects.The author finds that many scholars at home and abroad have done theoretical and practical researches on classroom questioning with fruitful results.The majority of research focus on senior high school and college English classroom,while researches related to junior high school English classroom questioning are relatively rare.Based on the previous studies at home and abroad,the author tries to explore the similarities and differences of the classroom questioning between novice and expert teachers from five aspects: questioning type,questioning strategy,answering way,wait time and teacher's feedback.The research questions are as follows:(1)What are the similarities and differences of classroom questioning between novice and expert teachers in English reading teaching?(2)What are the reasons for the differences of classroom questioning between novice and expert teachers in English reading teaching?(3)What is the students' perception of teachers' classroom questioning in English reading teaching?In this study,two expert English teachers,two novice English teachers and 240 students in the first grade of Middle School in Hohhot are taken as the research subjects.Two expert teachers are those who have worked in the middle school for over fifteen years and have obtained senior professional title.Two novice teachers are those who have worked for less than three years and have got primary professional title.Classroom observation,questionnaire and interview are used as the research instruments.The process of this study is divided into three parts: first,in order to find out the similarities and differences of classroom questioning between novice and expert teachers,eight English reading classes are observed and recorded,and then the author converted recordings into written materials.Second,four English teachers are interviewed individually to analyze the reasons for the differences.Finally,240 students complete a questionnaire about their perception of teachers' classroom questioning.Major findings of this study are as follows: 1.Both novice and expert teachers attach importance to classroom questioning and they tend to ask more display questions.However,expert teachers' proportion of asking referential and display questions is more reasonable than the novice teachers.2.Both types of the teachers can adopt various questioning strategies.Expert teachers use more prompting and probing strategies,while novice teachers use more repeating and translating strategies.3.Expert teachers can give students longer wait time than novice teachers.4.Expert teachers give students more opportunities to answer questions voluntarily and in chorus,while novice teachers use nominating and self-answering more frequently.5.Expert teachers usually give positive feedback with praise and comments,while novice teachers give simple positive feedback or negative feedback like error correction.Finally,according to the research results,the author of the thesis put forward some suggestions for improving the teachers' classroom questioning in English reading teaching,and discussed the limitations of this study and the recommendations for future research.