A Study On Teacher Questioning In EFL Class In Junior Middle Schools

Since the 1950 s, researchers and teachers have been more and more aware of the importance of teacher questioning in classroom interaction, and they have been showing a greater interest in conducting studies in this area. Research shows that the effective questions can cultivate students' critical thinking, increase language input and output, and promote language acquisition. In fact, the effective teacher questioning is the key factor influencing English teaching and a good use of teacher questioning can promote the teaching efficiency of English class. However, empirical studies on teacher questioning in China did not start until 1990 s, and most of the empirical studies in this area mainly focused on college English teachers' classroom questioning, with few studies on teacher questioning conducted in middle schools,especially in rural middle schools.This study was designed to get a clear picture about the current situation of teacher questioning in Chinese classrooms, especially in rural middle schools. It investigated the aspects of questioning types, questioning distribution, wait-time of teacher questioning and teachers' feedback in junior middle schools. It also explored the major problems of teacher questioning and then provided some effective suggestions to English teachers. The participants in this study were four English teachers and 181 students in Ji'an, Jiangxi province. Classroom observation and questionnaire were used to collect the data. By analyzing these data qualitatively and quantitatively, the study tried to find out the characteristics of teacher's questioning by calculating the frequency of each question type, wait time, distribution of questions and feedback. Specifically, the present study tried to find out the frequency of display question and referential question and how long the wait-time of English teachers was.Next, it explored how the English teachers distributed their questions in class. Finally,it attempted to reveal what kinds of feedback the English teachers used.The study has produced a number of findings concerning teacher questioning in middle schools. First, it is found that most English teachers in junior high schools ask more display questions than referential questions. Secondly, teachers give students adequate time to think about the questions before they start answering them. The post questions wait time provided by teachers is normally enough, but the post response wait time is not enough. Thirdly, teachers tend to let students answer the questions together and ask volunteer students to answer questions. Fourthly, English teachers in junior high schools give more positive feedback than negative feedback to students.However, many of the positive feedback provided by the teachers seem to be automatic answers. Teachers seldom criticize students in a direct way. When students do not answer these questions correctly, teachers often provide some clues for students to make self-repair.Based on the above findings, some suggestions are provided for English teachers.First, it is important for teachers to increase the number of referential questions.Teachers should ask the different types of questions according to the different tasks of text and different students. Secondly, teachers should provide students with enough post question wait time and post response wait time. Thirdly, teacher should distribute the questions widely and they should adopt flexible ways of questioning according to different students and different situation in classes. Finally, teacher should give timely and appropriate feedback to the students.