A Comparative Study On Classroom Questioning Between A Novice And An Expert EFL Teacher In Junior High School

Classroom questioning plays an important role in teaching and is considered as the core of effective teaching.Therefore,the study of classroom questioning is of great practical significance.However,current researches on it are mainly limited to theoretical discussion while for empirical studies,most of them focus on college English teachers.Studies on classroom questioning of junior high school English teachers are scant.This thesis employs Krashen's Input Hypothesis,Swan's Output Hypothesis,and Long's Interactive Hypothesis as theoretical bases.The author selects twenty classes in total from an expert teacher and a novice teacher in one junior high school in Suzhou.By means of classroom observation and interview,the author compares and contrasts their classroom questions from four aspects:question types,waiting time,answering methods and teacher's feedback,attempting to find the answers to the following two research questions:(1)What are the similarities and differences between them in these four aspects?(2)What factors have resulted in these differences between them?Based on data analysis,the findings are as follows:(1)Remembering and understanding questions account for the vast majority in their classes,but relatively,the expert teacher proposes more high-level questions in her classes.(2)There is no distinctive difference in waiting time for low-level questions,but for high-level questions,the expert teacher obviously waits for a longer time.(3)In terms of answering methods,the expert teacher employs the way of volunteering mostly while the novice teacher is inclined to adopt chorus answering method.(4)There exist great differences in giving feedback.Although both of them tend to use repeating method,the way of repeating differs.In addition,the novice teacher employs correcting method much more frequently but she adopts strategies of extending and exploring less than the expert teacher.(5)Factors resulting in the differences between them are concluded from internal aspect and external aspect.Internal factors consist of teaching philosophy,teaching experience,professional level as well as teacher's personal characteristics.External factors are composed of atmosphere of the school,teaching arrangements and students' characteristics.On the basis of the results,four feasible suggestions are proposed for novice teachers to enhance their questioning skills as follows:(1)Observe expert teachers' classes or communicate with experienced teachers to acquire indirect experience;(2)Read relevant literature and attend English teachers' training programs to improve professional knowledge of questioning;(3)Build up appropriate teaching philosophy to improve question raising and feedback giving;(4)Make attempts to learn more about students,such as their personal characteristics,learning habits and styles,as well as motivations for better teaching design and results.