A Comparative Study Of Questioning Management Between Expert Teachers And Novice Teachers In Senior High Schoolenglish Classes From The View Of Scaffolding

Questioning is an efficient teaching method in English classes. It can facilitate teacher-student interaction and provide more chances for students to do deep thinking. In China, numerous researchers have touched the topic—questioning, but few of them made some comparative studies between expert and novice English teachers in senior high schools. There are even fewer researches on questioning guided by scaffolding instruction.Supported by the theoretical foundation—scaffolding instruction and zone of proximal development theory, the author attempts to make a quantitative and qualitative research on questioning types and management between expert and novice English teachers in senior high schools, with the purpose to uncover the successful teaching methods for the novice English teachers to make a reference. The subjects are ten teachers and their students from two senior high schools in Jilin province.Based on the data of classroom observation and face-to-face interview, the author finds that there are many significant differences on questioning types and management between expert and novice English teachers. Expert English teachers attach importance to students’ subject status. Consequently, they would like to create more chances for students to get involved in the classroom interaction and they will adopt more confirmation checks and referential questions to encourage students to produce more output. Compared with expert English teachers, novice English teachers’ classes are much more teacher-centered. They pay lots of attention to the teaching material and their recited scripts, and they are likely to raise more comprehension checks and display questions to help students move forward. In dealing with students’ silence or insufficient answers, expert English teachers tend to adopt various management techniques to guide students into deep thinking, such as rephrasing, decomposition and prompt. While novice English teachers could only refer to repetition, it shows that they are not familiar with other techniques.Thus, the author provides the following suggestions for novice English teachers to refer to:(1) balance questioning types, trying to use more confirmation checks and clarification requests and make a balance between referential questions and display questions as well.(2) vary questioning management and adopt more adjustments instead of repetition.