A Study On The Effects Of Teacher Questioning Types On Students’ Thinking Quality In Senior High School English Reading Class

After the concept of core competencies of English discipline was proposed,the cultivation of students’ thinking quality has gradually become one of the teaching objectives.In English reading teaching,teachers can guide students to acquire,interpret,and evaluate the meaning of discourse through questioning,so that students’ agility and flexibility of thinking can be exercised.Therefore,teacher questioning in English reading teaching plays a very important role in cultivating students’ thinking quality.Scholars at home and abroad have conducted a great deal of research on teacher questioning and thinking quality respectively.However,research linking teacher questioning and students’ thinking quality in English reading teaching needs to be further developed.In view of this,the study aims to explore the effects of teacher questioning types on students’ thinking quality in English reading class,so as to propose practical and feasible suggestions for improving students’ thinking quality.Based on the revised Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives theory and constructivism theory,this study mainly adopts classroom observation,interviews and text analysis.Through the observation of 15 English reading lessons by three teachers and the analysis of transcribed texts,this study aims to explore the following two questions:(1)What are the types and frequency of teacher questioning among the three teachers in English reading class?(2)What effects do teacher questioning types have on students’ thinking quality in English reading class? In addition,in order to further understand teachers’ thoughts on cultivating students’ thinking quality and to put forward some practical suggestions,face-to-face interviews were conducted with three teachers.The results of this study show that:(1)Three teachers cover all six types of questioning in English reading class but their distribution is uneven.Among these questions,remembering questions and understanding questions are used more frequently while applying questions and creating questions are used less frequently.In addition,the number of low-order thinking questions is much higher than the number of high-order thinking questions.(2)Different teacher questioning types have different effects on students’ logical,critical and innovative thinking quality.Specifically,remembering questions,understanding questions and applying questions,can cultivate students’ logical thinking by guiding them to engage in some basic thinking activities such as observing information,comparing similarities and differences,summarizing and constructing concepts.However,they are not sufficient to stimulate students’ critical thinking and innovative thinking.Analyzing questions,evaluating questions and creating questions,can not only cultivate students’ logical thinking but also promote the development of critical thinking and innovative thinking by guiding them to engage in some complex thinking activities such as analyzing discourse,evaluating opinions,integrating knowledge and experience.On the basis of the findings,some suggestions for cultivating students’ thinking quality by teacher questioning are put forward.Firstly,teachers should ask questions in a balanced distribution in class.Secondly,the level of teacher questioning types should be from low to high.Finally,teachers should provide students with positive feedback.