A Comparative Research On Classroom Questioning Between Novice And Proficient English Teachers In Senior High School

Classroom questioning runs through the whole teaching processes,and it is one of the effective ways of communication and interaction between teachers and students.Effective questioning can promote students’ thinking quality and learning efficiency.However,in the actual classroom questioning,there still exist deficiencies.Therefore,taking the case study method,the researcher selects one novice and one proficient teacher of grade one in a senior high school for classroom observation.Besides,the researcher selects one more novice and one more proficient teacher.There are totally four teachers for semi-structured interview.The research is carried out from the three aspects,pre-class question design,while-class questioning and post-class questioning reflection.Research questions are as followings.1.What are similarities and differences in pre-class question design between novice and proficient teachers?2.What are similarities and differences in while-class questioning,including question types,calling ways,waiting time and feedback,between novice and proficient teachers?3.What are the similarities and differences in post-class questioning reflection between novice and proficient teachers?Through the comparative research on classroom questioning between novice and proficient teachers,the researcher finds some similarities and differences,and even deficiencies.It’s hoped that these findings are supplementary for the research on classroom questioning.On the interview,the teachers consistently admitted the importance of pre-class question design,but the novice teachers could prepare more than proficient teachers.Based on the classroom observation,it’s found that both the novice and proficient teachers used analysis questions most frequently.And the question types used most frequently were consistent in the same types of classes.In terms of the waiting time,the two teachers usually gave students 1-3 seconds to answer questions.The novice teacher adjusted the waiting time flexibly,while the proficient teacher gave students more time for thinking.Regarding to the calling ways,the two teachers shared similar order of the frequency,from most to the least,that was,students’ volunteering,teachers’ self-answering,nominating and chorus answering.Additionally,both teachers used positive feedback,and avoided explicit correction.But they did not give sufficient opportunities of student-initiate questions.The differences were that the proficient teacher preferred probing,while the novice teacher tended to repeat students’ answers.Lastly,as to the post-class questioning reflection,the novice teachers did better than the other ones,but all of the teachers should do more improvements.Aiming to the research findings,the researcher gives some pedagogical suggestions.