The Effects Of Teachers’ Questioning Types On Students’ Oral Output In Junior High School English Reading Classes

Questioning is one of the most important teaching strategies.Effective questioning enhance the interaction between teachers and students,especially in English reading classes.If teachers’ questioning is appropriate,students can have a better understanding of the text and stimulate their oral output.However,in actual English teaching,this most commonly used strategy is often ignored.Therefore,this research intends to explore the effects of teachers’ questioning types on students’ oral output in junior high school.It aims to help teachers to better understand students’ oral expressions in English reading classes so as to adjust the design of question types and promote students’ oral output.Based on the theories of Swain’s output hypothesis,Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives and Long’s interaction hypothesis,and adopted the research methods of classroom observation and transcription,this research aims to explore the following three research questions:1)What are the frequencies and characteristics of different teachers’ questioning types in junior high school English reading classes?2)What are the characteristics of students’ oral output to different teachers’ questioning types in junior high school English reading classes?3)What is the relationship between teachers’ questioning types and students’ oral output in junior high school English reading classes?On the basis of recording and analyzing of ten reading classes,some major findings are as follows:1)From the perspective of Long & Sato’s classification of questions,most of observed teachers prefer to raise display questions than referential questions in pre-reading and while-reading stages.However,teachers prefer to raise referential questions than display questions in post-reading stage.From the perspective of Bloom’s classification of questions,most of observed teachers tend to raise more low-cognitive-level questions than high-cognitive-level questions,especially remembering questions in pre-reading stage,understanding questions in while-reading stage,and applying questions in post-reading stage.Generally speaking,understanding questions account for the largest proportion,while evaluating questions and creating questions are seldom used,especially in pre-reading and while-reading stages.2)From the perspective of Long & Sato’s classification of questions,the average utterance length of students’ oral output to referential questions exceeds that to display questions,and the sentences are more complicated.From the perspective of Bloom’s classification of questions,the average utterance length of students’ oral output to high-cognitive-level questions also exceeds that to low-cognitive level questions.What’s more,high-cognitive level questions also simulate more complicated sentences.3)Display questions and referential questions have a significant impact on students’ oral output.Referential questions can inspire students to produce high-quality oral output with more words,and the sentence structure is more complicated.Similarly,Bloom’s six question types also have a certain impact on students’ oral output,especially in syntactic complexity aspect.Finally,this research puts forward some teaching suggestions for junior high school English teachers on the basis of the research findings,hoping to have substantial help in future teaching.