A Study Onthe Relationship Between Teachers' Questioning Beliefs And Practices In English Classes In Primary School

Questioning is a bridge between teachers and students' interaction in English classroom,as well asan important guarantee for language input.At present,the research about questioning has involved many aspects,for example,questioning types,questioning functions,questioning strategies,waiting time and feedback etc.In the domestic and foreign researches,many researchers mainly focus on teachers' questioning practices,but ignore the relationship between teachers' questioning practices and their beliefs.In this thesis,the author has mainly explored the relationship between teachers' questioning beliefs and practices in English classes in primary school.The purpose of this thesis is to explorethe questions of(1)questioning types used in English classes in primary school;(2)the questioning beliefs for English teachers in primary school;(3)the relationship between teachers' beliefs and practices in English classes in primary school.This study was conducted in a primary school in Harbin,in which five teachers in Grade Four were selected as participants.In this research,questioning types in English classes were examined with classroom observation.Questionnaire collected teachers' beliefs about questioning from three characteristics of quality questions: purpose for asking questions,content of questions and cognitive level of questions.In addition,interviews with five teachers were adopted to further explore the relationship between teachers' beliefs about questioning and actual practices.The results of this thesis showed that teachers used the types of remembering,understanding and applying questions more often than analyzing,evaluating and creating questions in English classes.All the teachers design their questions based on the National English Curriculum,in order to improve their students' interest of learning English.But in their actual practices,there are discrepancies between teachers' beliefs and practices,which are mainly reflected in the content focus of questions and the cognitive level of questions.Based on above conclusions,the author gives some suggestions on asking questions for primary school teachers.Primary school English teachers should give more consideration to the cultivation of higherorder cognitive abilities for their students.Teachers base their design of questions on the characteristics of students' cognitive abilities,balancing the use of various types of questioning.They should change the inherent beliefs on classroom questioning andimprove their questioning skills as well as promote the development of students' key competencies.The value of this research lies in(1)helping teachers' to reflect the discrepancy between teachers' beliefs and practices in English classes;(2)enhancing the teachers' attention to classroom questioning for primary school English teachers;(3)improving teachers' questioning skills,so as to improve the quality of English classes in primary school.