Research On Students’ Questioning Ability In High School English Classroom

The new curriculum standard points out that students’ imaginative and analytic ability can be developed through the combination of scientific imagination and reasoning methods,which can help students form good habits of thinking,dare to question and innovate.Therefore,putting forward questions is one of the basic elements of students’ scientific exploration competence.In English class,students’ questioning is the fuse of thinking and the driving force for learning.Therefore,teachers can cultivate students’ ability to raise,analyze and solve problems.In view of the importance of students’ questioning ability in English classroom,this study attempts to analyze the current situation and differences of students’ questioning ability in high school English classroom,find out various factors affecting students’ questioning in English classroom,and explore effective measures to change this situation.At the same time,it will also serve as a reference for English teachers in senior high school to improve English teaching and explore scientific teaching skills in classroom.This study is based on the questionnaire,supplemented by classroom observation and interview,with students in senior high school of Chongqing as the research subjects.The questionnaire of students’ questioning ability in high school English classroom is based on the questionnaire of students’ questioning ability of Si Chengyong(2006)and Chen Bei(2012).The questionnaire has four dimensions:questioning awareness,questioning content,questioning obstacles and questioning ways.Classroom observation is mainly to record the number and types of students’ questions,and the interview is mainly to find out the factors that affect students’ questioning ability in depth and to know the attitude of students for this dimension.This study focuses on the three questions: 1.What is the current situation of students’ questioning ability in high school English classroom? 2.What are the factors that affect students’ questioning ability in high school English classroom? 3.Are there any differences in the questioning ability between students in liberal arts and science,male and female? If so,what are the reasons for it?The results show that: 1.Students’ questioning ability in high school English classroom is in the middle level,the highest one is questioning awareness,followed by questioning ways,questioning obstacles and questioning content.2.The factors that affect the students’ questioning ability in high school English classroom include:(1)Students’ personality.Students with extroverted personality are more skilled at questioning in class.(2)Students oral English.Students with fluent oral expression are more capable of raising questions.(3)Teaching content in class.If the teaching content is interesting,it can stimulate students’ interest in learning so that students do well in questioning.(4)Teachers’ teaching philosophy.A student-centered classroom teaching can stimulate students to think and cultivate their abilities to question.4.Questioning ability of science students is higher than that of liberal arts students as a whole,especially in questioning obstacles.The reasons are attributed to the atmosphere in classroom and active thinking of students as well as teachers’ heterogeneous teaching methods.The questioning ability of female students is higher than that of male students,especially in questioning awareness and questioning obstacles.The reason is that female students are relatively more interested in English,and they are better at oral expression.Besides,they pay more attention to learning details and so on.According to the results of the research,this paper puts forward some practical suggestions for improving students’ questioning ability in English classroom from two aspects.For teachers:(1)Changing teaching philosophy and enhancing the understanding of questioning teaching;(2)Allocating class time properly and interacting with students actively;(3)Improving students’ cognitive structure andpromoting the quality of students’ questioning.(4)Training students’ on questioning strategies and developing formative evaluation.For students:(1)Cultivating questioning awareness and developing critical and dialectical thinking;(2)Enhancing the communication and cooperation with teachers and classmates and overcoming the timidity of raising questions in class;(3)Mastering the methods of posing questions and increasing students’ confidence in questioning;(4)Broadening the knowledge structure and improving language competence.