A Study On Effectiveness Of Teacher Questioning Behavior In Junior Middle School Reading Classroom

The study of effective teaching behavior finds that teacher classroom questioning behavior is one of the main behaviors in effective teaching.The clearer teaching goals of the questions are,the more effective the teacher questioning behavior will be.Over the years,scholars abroad and at home have summarized teacher questioning behavior from different dimensions,but the study of effectiveness of teacher questioning behavior is mostly based on theoretical research.At the same time,among the few empirical study of the subject,most of them are conducted in the university,and the others mainly focus on senior high school classroom.Based on the Krashen's Input Hypothesis,Swain's Output Hypothesis,Long's Interaction Hypothesis as well as Constructive Learning Theory,this study discusses the effectiveness of teacher questioning behavior from five small units: question type,question distribution,answering ways of questioning,waiting time and teacher's response,in which the first four belong to teacher's raising behavior.Combining with the characteristics of reading teaching and the relevant requirements of English Curriculum Standards,this research explores the characteristics and problems of teacher's raising behavior and teacher's response in English reading classroom.At the same time,as for teacher questioning behavior,some feasible suggestions are provided for reading teaching development in junior middle school.In this research,five teachers from different classes are observed and interviewed,and all the 196 students participate in questionnaire survey and they come from the five teachers' classes.All the teachers and students in the experiment are from Cangqian Middle School.The teaching materials adopted in this research are reading parts of PEP Junior English Course Book.The study mainly works out the following three questions:(1)From the student's feedback,to what extent does teacher questioning behavior enable students to learn more effectively in English reading classroom?(2)What are the characteristics and main problems in teacher's raising behavior and teacher's response in English reading classroom in Cangqian Middle School?(3)What's the teacher's general perception of teacher questioning behavior in English reading classroom?Based on the data analysis and discussions,the findings of the study are as follows:(1)Most students thought teacher questioning behavior is very helpful for reading learning,and at the same time,they hope to get more open-ended questions,more equal answering opportunities,more open answering ways,more wait time and more detailed teacher's response in English reading classroom.(2)The distribution of question type is not reasonable,too little high-level questions at the stage of while-reading and post-reading.(3)The distribution of questions asked by teachers is relatively even,but students in the front and in the middle of the classroom usually get more chances to answer.(4)The answering ways of questioning are unreasonable actually,there are too much chorus-answering and nomination but too little volunteering during the class.(5)The wait time is a little bit short,especially for the high-level questions,which are not given enough time for students to think about.(6)Teachers give positive response to students,but most of them belong to simple praise,which is too single and mechanical.(7)Most teachers have a basic understanding of teacher questioning behavior more or less,which is mostly based on their teaching experiences or personal understandings but lack of theoretical basis and it is not deep and detail relatively;although most of the them can realize the importance of self-reflection and they can get lots of benefits from it,some teachers may not develop the habit of self-reflection after class regularly.Therefore,some suggestions are provided for improving the effectiveness of teacher questioning behavior in English reading classroom from the perspective of teachers:Firstly,increase the high-level question in while-reading and post-reading periods,and encourage students to analyze,solve and evaluate the questions;secondly,encourage students volunteered to answer questions and enhance their initiation;thirdly,increase the wait time appropriately;fourthly,more positive response with explanations and comments is necessary in reading classroom.In addition,as for teacher professional development,teachers should strengthen themselves by learning more advanced teaching theories and making reflection regularly after class.