A Survey On The Effect Of Teachers’ Questioning Strategies On Teacher-student Interaction In Junior High School English Class

Classroom questioning is often considered to be a vital way to promote teacher-student communication and interaction in the classroom.Classroom interaction is regarded as the main way for students to learn language.The research topics of classroom questioning and classroom interaction have attracted more and more attention of domestic and foreign scholars.However,there are not many studies that combine teacher questioning strategies with teacher-student interaction.This kind of combination was actualized in this survey.This survey aims at exploring the status quo of questioning strategies,examining and improving the impact of teachers’ questioning strategies on teacher-student interaction in order to enhance teacher-student interaction in the EFL(English as a Foreign Language)classes.Based on the research intention,three research questions were raised.First is the current status of the controlling and assessment strategies of teachers’ questioning.Second,discovering the effect of teachers’ questioning strategies on teacher-student interaction is also one of the goals of this survey.Third,students’ satisfaction and expectations of the current use of questioning strategies were investigated through questionnaires.So as to obtain the results of the research questions,a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods was applied in this survey.Classroom observations,classroom videos,questionnaire and interviews were used to investigate six teachers and 295 students in a junior high school in Chifeng City,Inner Mongolia.The classroom observation showed that the two strategies of sequence and paraphrase were more frequently applied than other controlling strategies,while positive evaluation strategies were much more frequently used in the six observed classes.Furthermore,the level of teacher-student interaction did not depend on the frequency of each questioning strategy,but on questioning strategies which were suitable for students.The results showed that the use of sequencing,probing,redirecting,short & simple compliments,and negative feedback strategies did not improve the level of teacher-student interaction in the classroom.Additionally,questionnaire results showed that most students had a positive attitude towards the existence of teachers’ questioning.However,the current status of the application of teacher questioning strategies did not fully meet the expectations of students.Teachers should consider many factors such as teaching content,teaching conditions and personal characteristics of students when choosing strategies.