| Questions and answers form a high percentage of classroom activities, and it has long been important technique of language teaching. Its significant role in classroom teaching has also been emphasized. Especially now, classroom questioning has become a hot issue in foreign language teaching and foreign language learning. Much research has been done in this aspect. In recent years, the concerned study also attracts great interest of Chinese scholars. The prior research provides us with a clear account of classroom questioning. Unfortunately, there is also some room for improvement. First, most research is mainly theoretical argumentation, seldom providing operational methods to improve it. Second, the focus of most studies is on teachers' classroom questioning, and that of students is neglected. Moreover, there are no comprehensive studies for college classrooms, especially for college English classrooms.Reading instruction (including intensive and extensive reading in this study) gets more and more important for English majors. However, influenced by traditional teaching model, the teaching efficiency is in general far from being satisfying. Thus, from teachers' and students' perspectives, this study is designed to investigate classroom questioning in reading instruction for English majors, so as to reveal the current situation and existing problems in this aspect, then provide some constructive suggestions for classroom questioning. It is hoped that this study will be helpful in stimulating students' interest, enlivening classroom atmosphere and improving English classroom teaching efficiency.On the basis of social constructivism, the present study made a qualitative research on classroom questioning in reading instruction for English majors. To test the role of classroom questioning in practice, the study was conducted among 300 students from freshmen to seniors and 10 teachers offering reading courses in College of Foreign Languages at Qufu Normal University. The study was intended to (1) give an objective account of the present condition of classroomquestioning in reading instruction for English majors; (2) reveal the current problems in classroom questioning; and (3) make some suggestions for classroom questioning in reading instruction for English majors. Classroom observation, interview and questionnaire were used to collect data. Among them, classroom observation and questionnaire were main instruments, and interview was used as a complementary one. The researcher adopted induction, description and other qualitative approaches to analyze the collected data. Some data were analyzed with Statistical Package for Social Sciences 11.0.The results of this study indicated that classroom questioning was still quite extensively adopted in reading courses for English majors. Most classroom questions were teacher's questions and students seldom asked questions in class. What's more, teacher's questions were mainly display questions. Most teachers didn't spare enough wait-time for students to think. Although there was a marked difference in the total time of teacher's questioning and the total number of teacher's questions of four grades, there was a strong resemblance in the use of teacher's and students' questions, that is, the percentage of teacher's display questions was much higher than that of referential questions, and students asked very few questions. The results also showed that both teachers and students responded positively to a reasonable use of classroom questioning, and that students' classroom questioning was perceived more helpful for English learning. Meanwhile, the feedback and expectation of students and teachers to classroom questioning were inconsistent. That showed there was dislocation between students' and teacher's opinions, and teachers lacked full understanding about students' needs in classroom questioning. Accordingly, from students' and teachers' perspectives, the researcher explored the existing problems in classroom questioning and the reasons leading to such undesirable situation.Aiming at solving the problems that hinder the advancement of educational reform in terms of classroom questioning, the researcher presented two implications (i.e. the role of classroom interaction and that of classroom...
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