An Investigation Of Teacher Questioning In Senior High School English Class

Given the important role of classroom interaction in students' knowledge construction and its significance of promoting teaching and learning,teacher questioning,as one of the main forms of classroom interaction,has always been of interest to many researchers.In recent years,domestic scholars mainly focus on the characteristics of teacher questioning in universities,while a few researches have been conducted on the senior high school students' and teachers' attitudes and preferences towards teacher questioning.In fact,the understanding of students' expectations and teachers' expectations is an effective way to improve the quality of teacher questioning.Therefore,the present study is carried out to investigate these issues.The present study aims to answer the following three questions:(1)What are the features of teacher questioning in senior high school English class?(2)What are the gaps between real situation and students' expectations of teacher questioning?(3)What are the gaps between real situation and teachers' expectations of teacher questioning? This study selects 4 English teachers and 200 students in Zhengzhou No.2 Middle School as research subjects.Data are collected,analyzed and discussed through classroom observation and questionnaire.The major findings are presented as follows:(1)The features of teacher questioning in senior high school English class: more display questions are adopted by teachers than referential questions,and the number of display questions is about twice that of referential questions.Teachers mainly adopt the nominating and chorus answering,while students seldom answer voluntarily.Probing and repeating are commonly applied strategies,while redirecting and explaining are not often used.Teachers generally give students less than 5 seconds to prepare answers after questioning.More positive feedback is adopted by teachers.The most frequently positive feedback adopted is praise with repetition,and clarification request is the most commonly used negative feedback.(2)The gaps between real situation and students' expectations of questioning are mainly reflected in four aspects: types of question,questioning strategies,waiting time and positive feedback.In the real class,teachers raise more display questions,while the majority of students show their preferences for referential questions without standard answers.Teachers usually adopt probing strategy,while students expect teachers to apply prompting strategy.Teachers wait less than 5 seconds after asking questions,but most students expect more time to prepare answers.Teachers often use praise with repetition to give feedback on students' correct answers,while students expect teachers to make specific comments on their answers.(3)The gaps between real situation and teachers' expectations of questioning embody three aspects: questioning strategy,waiting time and negative feedback.Teachers think they usually adopt explaining strategy,while classroom observation shows that they are more inclined to use probing strategy.Teachers believe that there is enough time for students to think after questioning,while teachers' waiting time is often less than 5 seconds in real class.Teachers consider that they adopt recast to give feedback on students' incorrect answers,but in fact they often make students do self-correction by asking for clarification.