Research On Student English Teachers' Classroom Questioning

According to the interactive teaching view, classroom teaching is not the teachers'imparting knowledge to students any more. Instead, the teaching process should be the communication and interaction between teachers and students, which can be realized through classroom questioning. Classroom questioning is not only a teaching method,but also an important tool for teachers to know about students' studies. As for teachers,questioning can help them attract students' attention and understand students' learning results. And for students, questioning provides them an opportunity to take part in classroom learning, help them train their thinking ability and express their ideas.Effective classroom questioning is the guarantee of improving the quality of teaching.In terms of English subject, classroom questioning is of more significance. Firstly,teachers' questions,as the comprehensible input for students, can be important learning materials. Secondly, questions force students to produce more language output, thus offering them more opportunities to practice their oral English. Through classroom questioning, the communication and interaction between teachers and students become possible, making the teaching and learning run smoothly. It is for these reasons that classroom questioning becomes an important research topic in teaching field. In recent years, more and more scholars abroad and at home have done researches on questioning. In theory, the research mainly focuses on the definition of questioning, functions of questions, question types, principles, strategies, wait-time and teachers' feedbacks, etc. In practice, the study concerns different phases of education, such as pre-school, primary school, secondary school and college. Practical research on questioning also involves different subjects, like Chinese, math, and English as well as Chinese as a foreign language. In addition, some scholars also have conducted researches on questioning with other factors, such as students' learning anxiety. It is showed by related literature that the research on student English teachers'classroom questioning is rare. However, there do exist some problems in student English teachers' questioning. Therefore,to do research on student English teachers'questioning skill is necessary and meaningful.This study chose five postgraduates of English Education from foreign languages schools in Central China Normal University as the research subjects, observed their lessons and conducted interviews with them to do the research on student teachers'classroom questioning. This paper mainly concerns the following three questions:1) What are the student English teachers' characteristics on classroom questioning in quantity, types, ways questions answered, wait-time, strategies,feedbacks and language?2) What are the problems of student English teachers' classroom questioning?3) What are the reasons for the problems of student English teachers5 classroom questioning?The results of classroom observation and interview are in the following.1) The characteristics of student English teachers' classroom questioning: in quantity, student English teachers propose relatively fewer questions; in terms of question types, there are more knowledge questions; next, as for ways questions answered, nomination and in chorus are the two ways used more often; then, as for wait-time, student teachers do not give time after put forward some questions and they give only 1-2 seconds for some other questions; and then, in the aspect of questioning strategies, prompting and repeating are the two strategies that student teachers tend to use more often; in terms of feedbacks, student teachers are more fond of simple positive feedbacks and repetitions; at last, in the aspect of questioning language,student teachers raise many general questions and true-false questions.2) There are some problems in student English teachers' classroom questioning.Firstly, in questioning types, there are a lot of knowledge questions which are in low cognitive level and there are fewer challenging questions in high cognitive level;secondly, there is not enough or no wait-time; as for ways questions answered,nomination and in chorus are the two ways used more often, or teachers replace students to answer questions, seldom do students answer questions by volunteering;student English teachers' questioning strategy, especially the guiding skill is not qualified; there are no feedbacks for some questions and a lot of ineffective feedbacks;finally, there are many simple yes-no questions and true-false questions and there are some grammatical mistakes.3)The reasons for the problems of student English teachers' questioning: student teachers lack understanding towards the theoretical knowledge of classroom questioning; student teachers' understanding towards students is not enough; student teachers do not prepare well before class; student teachers' English professional ability is insufficient; the reflection after class is not enough; and finally, student teachers lack teaching experience.According to the research results, the author makes a summary of the effective ways to improve student English teachers' classroom questioning. For example,student teachers should read more related books and get a better understanding of the theoretical knowledge of classroom questioning. Student teachers' understanding towards students should be deeper. Student teachers are supposed to put forward more high cognitive level questions; careful preparation before class is necessary. Student teachers should have a better command of questioning strategies, especially the guiding answers skill. Student teachers ought to allocate the wait-time according to the difficulty level of questions. Students volunteering to provide answers should be encouraged by student teachers. They should also reflect actively after class. Student teachers need to improve their English professional ability. And finally, student teachers are supposed to use questioning language cautiously. There is a hope that the study and implications of this thesis may give other student English teachers some help to improve their teaching skill.