An Investigation Into Student Questioning In EFL Classroom In A Senior High School

In the past few decades, considerable research has been conducted on teacher questioning, but relatively little attention has been paid to student questioning. Researchers and teachers are aware of the dearth of student questioning in class and have increasingly drawn attention to research in this area in foreign countries. However, research on student questioning in China was carried out rather late, and most of the studies have centered on theoretical research in classroom at different levels in different schools. Senior high school students, however, are seldom selected as subjects to be investigated in this field. Therefore, this study is devoted to examine senior high school students' questioning in English class.With students' questions serving useful functions for both learners and teachers, this particular study aims at investigating the present status of student questioning in a senior high school English teaching so as to find out the factors affecting student questioning and strategies in the cultivation of student questioning. In order to achieve the purpose, this study attempted to answer the following research questions:(1) What is the current situation of student questioning in senior high school English class?(2) What factors may affect student questioning in senior high school English class?(3) What strategies can we use to promote student questioning in senior high school English class? The subjects in it were 148 senior high school students and 10 English teachers in Yongxiu No. 1 senior high school. All of the students were the first-year students and most of them had studied English for more than six years. The research instruments used in this study were questionnaire, interview and classroom observation. Statistical Package for Social Science(SPSS) version 16.0 was used to complete the data analysis in this study.This research revealed that the senior high school students were not aware of the importance of student questioning and lack of questioning in English classes. This group of students rarely took the initiative to ask questions in class. The results also showed that there existed an imbalance of question types in student questioning and most questions asked in class focused on memory-based and convergent questions. Three main factors were claimed to be responsible for student questioning in English class, namely, factors from students themselves, factors from teachers and factors from others. In addition, five strategies of promoting student questioning were also found to be effective to enhance student questioning, such as cultivating harmonious teacher-student relationship, sparking students' curiosity, forming learning groups, carrying out positive feedback and less error correction and arranging reasonable questioning time for students.On the basis of the research results, some suggestions were put forward at the end of the thesis. First of all, teachers should pay attention to students' affective factors in English classroom, especially for those students with introverted character and lower English proficiency. Secondly, teachers should help students improve their oral English, because a high level of oral English can promote students' questioning in class. In the third place, teachers are supposed to optimize their attitude towards student questioning and give more preparation time for students to raise questions. Last but not least, it's important for the teachers to enrich the teaching contents in a limited class time.