A Case Study Of Students' Self-questioning In English Class In The Demonstrative High School Of Guizhou Minority Areas

Cultivating talents with innovative thinking ability,autonomous learning ability and cooperative learning ability is one of the main goals for high school English teaching,thus,to foster students' awareness and ability of questioning in class becomes a crucial task.However,in this regard,the gap exists between minority areas and developed areas in China.Although scholars and teachers have done some researches on students' self-questioning in class in minority areas in recent years,the studies specially for high school students' self-questioning in English class are still rare.Therefore,this study aims to investigate the general situation of students' self-questioning in high school English class in minority areas and further explore whether there exist gender differences and grade differences,in hope of offering some implications for the improvement of students' self-questioning in high school English class.Based on constructive learning theory and Swain's comprehensible output hypothesis,this study adopts a questionnaire as the primary research method for collecting quantitative data and an interview as the complementary for qualitative data to conduct the investigation.The questionnaire for the present study is from Si Chengyong(2006)'s students' self-questing in class questionnaire for students,which have a slight modification and comprises six dimensions,namely,consciousness,quantities,types,obstacles,time for preparing and ways of students' self-questioning.339 students from Xinyi High School participate in this study and 336 responses are confirmed valid.The research questions addressed in the present study are:(1)What is the general situation of students' self-questioning in high school English class?(2)Are there any gender differences among high school students on self-questioning in class?(3)Are there any grade differences among high school students on self-questioning in class?Through the investigation,the major findings are:(1)students' practical actions are discrepant with their high consciousness of self-questioning.Specifically,students have low quantities of questioning,single type of questioning and fewer high-level questioning.Besides,they contribute obstacles to personality and English oral proficiency,and they prefer the way to question in group;(2)significant gender differences do exist but merely on the types and obstacles of self-questioning.More female students ask grammar-oriented or higher level questions while more male students ask content-oriented questions or lower level questions.Male students face more difficulties than female students especially on personality,oral proficiency,interest in English,bravery,text understanding and questioning technique;(3)significant grade differences do exist but only on the external obstacles of self-questioning.Grade one students face more difficulties than grade two students when affected by teachers' or classmates' negative attitude and lack of training on questioning.According to these findings,some suggestions are put forward for English teachers and high school students in Guizhou minority areas respectively.For English teachers:(1)changing the questioning mode in class in regular classes gradually from the teacher-centered to the combination of teacher questioning and students questioning;(2)training the skills of self-questioning by equipping students with the knowledge of different types of questions systematically,providing students with effective questioning techniques and guiding them to practice formulating their questions with the given chances and time;(3)cultivating students' positive attitude for self-questioning by exhibiting positive attitude,forming study groups,setting a assessment system or reward mechanism;(4)improving students' English oral proficiency for self-questioning by adopting English as the main medium of instruction in class and make full use of trilingual advantage.For high school students:(1)expanding knowledge reserve by reading with criticality and learning more about the culture of other countries and nationalities for the equipment of intercultural awareness and perspective;(2)enhancing personal qualities on thinking ability,learning mindset and learning ability.