The Interpretation Of Teachers’ Questioning In College English Classrooms Under The Framework Of Adaptation Theory

Teachers’ questioning is a central and vital aspect of teacher talk as it servesso many functions, which has gained a lot of attention from domestic and overseasscholars in recent years. Teachers’ questioning can trigger students’ thinking,maintain their interests, and promote their language learning and acquisition. But itis still an under-researched area, because the past researches of teachers’questioning merely focus on the linguistic aspects of “questioning”, and neglect itspragmatic function in the interaction between teachers and students. This studyinvestigates teachers’ questioning as practiced in college English classrooms underthe framework of Adaptation Theory. This study employs an in-depth pragmaticaspect of “questioning” that is from the perspective of Adaptation Theory which isproposed by Jef Verscheren. In the previous studies, pragmatics is considered bymost pragmatists as paralleled to other branches of linguistics, such as phonetics,phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics. However, according to Verscheren(2000), pragmatics does not constitute an additional component of a theory oflanguage, but it offers a different perspective, which is intended to give insightsinto the link between language and human life in general. Adaptation Theorybrings a new perspective to the production and interpretation of teachers’questioning and sheds light on the dynamic processes of teachers’ questioning.The present study is based on Adaptation Theory to analyze “teachers’questioning” in college English classrooms, in order to guide the defect ofquestioning in the real teaching environment to some extent. It is conducive topromoting communicative interactions between teachers and students. Researchquestions of the present study are:1) What is the situation of teachers’ questioningin college English classroom nowadays? And what’s the defect?2) Is Adaptation Theory beneficial to teachers’ questioning, and can help teachers to raise effectivequestions?3) How should teachers propose questions under the framework ofAdaptation Theory?Through collecting data and information from classroom observation,questionnaires and interview, analyzing data by means of SPSS18.0, the studyfinds that:1) At present, teachers’ questioning in the college English classroomcannot develop students’ communicative competence, which is mainly manifestedin the following aspects: classification of teachers’ questioning, wait-time ofteachers’ questioning, teachers’ questioning strategies, the ways of answeringquestions, teachers’ feedbacks of students’ answers, and distributions of teachers’questioning, all of which violate College English Curriculum Requirements (2007);2) After training teachers’ questioning by means of adaptation model of teachers’questioning, the quality of teachers’ questioning is improved, and the length andcomplexity of students’ responses are increased. Therefore, students’communicative competence and their language acquisition can be developed andpromoted.3) Teachers have preliminary adaption awareness and can makeadaptation on specific questions to achieve successful interactions betweenteachers and students.All in all, teachers’ questioning is explored under Adaptation Theory is verymeaningful, and AT provides a theoretical basis for teachers to ask questions, helpthem to develop adaption awareness. Every question proposed by teachers isreasonable other than casual. Questioning skills of teachers can be promoted, so dothe target language learning of students.