A Study On Effectiveness Of Teachers’ Questioning In Intensive Reading Class Of College English

Teacher questioning has been paid more attention from lots ofeducators for many years, which is an effective teaching method. It is anindispensable part in classroom teaching, which plays an important role thatcan help teacher input, deliver and share information with students. As aresult, it can offer an opportunity for students to produce output and receiveteachers’ feedback. Actually, it is true that not all teachers’ questions areeffective. The former researches on the teachers’ classroom questioningmainly focus on the description of the teachers’ questioning features.However, there are seldom studies about college English teachers’questioning and students’ expectation towards it in China. Therefore, thisthesis is designed to investigate the teachers’ questioning from the aspect oftypes of questions, the way questions answered, questioning strategies,question distribution, their wait time and feedback. At the same time, itprobes into students’ expectation towards different aspects of questioningand try to find out the effective ways of college English teachers’ classroomquestioning. The results might enhance teachers’ development and theireffectiveness of questioning.This research is to investigate students and teachers in Inner MongoliaUniversity and Inner Mongolia Normal University with the help of the waysof questionnaire, recording, interview and observation. The researcherlistened to8periods of each teacher’s2periods (100minutes), shot all theperiods and took notes, then analyzed each teacher’s questioning from theaspects of types of questions, the way questions answered, questioningstrategies, question distribution, wait time and feedback. Moreover, theinterviews with teachers and students were carried out.According to the analysis of the empirical data, the findings are listed as follows:1. The rate of display questions are asked much higher than that ofreferential questions in majority of the College English teachers’ intensivereading classes. However, the students also expect that teachers could askmore referential questions. That is to say, the questions are effective ifteachers master the proper rate of referential questions and display questions;try their best to utter referential questions as much as possible.2. The questioning strategy which teachers apply most is the prompting,but students expect teachers to use technique of decomposition morefrequently. At the same time, teachers should keep balance among the fourquestioning strategies.3. From the respect of the way questions answered, teachers likevolunteers’ answering questions most, which is also the way students prefer.Hoping teacher balance four ways questions answered and try their best touse volunteers’ answering questions as possible, which is good forquestioning effective.4. Students expect that teachers treat all the students equally. Teachersshould follow the rule of teaching equality to keep asking effectivequestions.5. Students do expect teachers to prolong wait time in order that theycan think about the question to find out the best answers..6. Teachers usually give students positive feedback and they seldomoffer explicit negative feedback. Students also expect that teachers offermore positive feedback, with detailed explanation and comments.All in all, according to the findings, the effectiveness of classroomquestioning mainly depends on the proper types of questions and good wayanswered, equal distribution, effective feedback, sufficient wait time andproper questioning strategies somehow. Teachers need to ask morereferential questions and keep an appropriate proportion of each type ofquestion; They may ask volunteers to answer questions and consider otherstudents’ needs; When asking questions, they should treat every student equally; Teachers should delay their wait time they may use effectivequestioning strategies and positive feedback, with explanation andcomments in detail. This thesis expects that teachers could raise questions ina more effective way to create an active and high-effectiveness situation,and then improve teachers’professional skills and abilities.