A Study Of Questioning In English Classes At Senior Middle School Level

As one of the most frequently used strategies, Questioning in ESL/EFL class actually makes a difference in classroom teaching. In the meantime, classroom questioning can evidently influence on inspecting the knowledge of every part how students learn, training learners’capacities to express themselves through the target language, improving students’ level of thinking, giving the guidance to the students as to think, learn and actively participate in learning process, and stimulating the students to interact with their information and make the communication among teachers and students. Therefore the quality of classroom questioning has a direct impact on the effectiveness of teaching. Nonetheless, in senior school, the English teachers still have many erroneous zone and problems to the application of the questioning strategies. The core question is not salient; the difficulties of the questions are not appropriate; the feedback is not noticeable. These problems will be more or less practically in the high school English classes. With the former theories and research literature on classroom questioning strategies as its theoretical basis, the author puts forward assumption that the application of Marylou Dantonio&Paul C. Beisenherz’s Qu:Est questioning strategies (Questioning for Understanding:Empowering Student Thinking) can improve the English scores of students and their interest in studying English.The thesis aims at investigating how the utilization of Marylou Dantonio&Paul C. Beisenherz’s Qu:Est questioning strategies impacts on the students’English study of Grade1in Senior school, which provides a reference for the English teachers in the high school and helps them adopt questioning strategies to sharpen the efficiency of classroom and students’ learning initiative. The thesis attempts to explore the following research questions:(1) How is the students’interest in English learning after the application of Qu:Est questioning strategies?(2) To what extent can Qu:Est questioning strategies improve students’achievement on English learning?In order to answer the three questions, the thesis employs experiment as the main method supplemented by questionnaires. This research was taken in Liaoning province, Pan Shan senior middle from from16th September,2012to11th, January,2013. Two classes in Grade1in senior school were chosen to make the experiment. In the experiment, Class9is regarded as the control group and class10as the experimental group. The experimental class was taught with Qu:Est questioning strategies by the author and the traditional way of teaching English was conducted in the control class by the same person. Before the experiment, the author designed questionnaires to measure students’attitudes towards learning English in experimental class. After the experiment, the author measured again. What’s more, before the experiment the author tested the students in two classes. After the utilization of Qu:Est questioning strategies, students were required to make a test again.Through data analysis and research results, it can thus be concluded:The results of questionnaires demonstrated that Qu:Est questioning strategies can improve the students’interest in studying English. After the utilization of Qu:Est questioning strategies, the achievements of the students in the experimental group were better than the control group’s.Based on the findings, the author makes recommendations for solving the existing problems in English classroom questioning.