A Research On The Effects Of Teachers' Questioning On The Students' Oral Performance In Secondary Vocational School

Faced with economic globalization,much attention has been placed on training practical talents and improving students' English applying capabilities in secondary vocational schools' English teaching.In order to achieve this goal,it is crucial to improve the quality of classroom teaching in secondary vocational school.Teacher questioning is one of the most frequently used interactive processes.It also provides opportunities for students to produce outputs by a target language and promotes interactions between teachers and students.Most of the classroom interactions are carried out by "asking-and-answering"sessions.Teachers' questioning is vital both to the teachers' professional development and to the students'academic achievements.Effective English teachers' questioning strategies can stimulate classroom interaction.Many scholars have made some researches about questioning strategies in college,but few of them have done such research about questioning strategies in secondary vocational school.The present research aims to investigate the influence of teacher questioning on students' oral production in EFL classroom.Three dimensions of teacher questioning are examined in this research:question type,questioning strategy and wait time.The method of naturalistic observation is used in this study to ensure the observing subjects in their natural environment.A survey research was carried out in School of Nursing,Lanzhou University.An experienced EFL teacher and two parallel classes from the School of Nursing,Lanzhou University were selected as the research subjects.Instruments used to collect the data were:language proficiency tests,classroom observation,interview and audio-recording.Before the observation,the tests were taken by all the student subjects to determine their English language proficiency which was used in group dividing.Then,the classroom observations and audio-recordings were conducted continuously for a month to collect all the first-hand data for the use of analysis.All the verbal information recorded was transcribed into words and classified according for the purpose of being analyzed by SPSSFindings from the survey reveal that secondary vocational schools'English teaching is following the traditional teaching method.The students' oral responses to referential questions are usually longer and more complex than those to display questions.The data show that there is no significant difference between the two groups' oral production to the display questions.However,there occurs significant difference between the two groups' oral production while responding to the referential questions.The questioning strategies employed by the EFL teacher are effective in eliciting students' oral production.There is no significant difference between the two group's oral production when the strategies of self-explaining,promoting and redirecting are used by the teacher.Increasing the wait time appropriately has positive influence on students' oral production.Despite its implications and suggestions to the further studies in the relevant field,the study has its limitations as well.For example,the sample size is so small that the result may not be very persuasive and reliable.There are no enough materials,which can not reflect the whole communications in the classroom.To some extent,the thesis is meant to help English teachers get to know the current situation of questioning in secondary vocational school.Teachers need to learn from others' merits and overcome their own shortcomings.Therefore,the findings of the study may have implications on both language teaching and teachers' professional development.