An Investigation On Teachers’ Questioning In Senior High School English Reading Teaching From The Perspective Of Thinking Quality

The General Senior High School English Curriculum Standards（2017 version）advocates thinking quality as an important part of the core competencies of English.English reading has major role in cultivating students’ thinking quality with its rich educational connotation and language appreciation value.And questioning is the specific and operable way to develop students’ thinking quality.However,teachers usually ignore the cultivation of students’ thinking quality through classroom questioning.This study takes 6 teachers and 250 students of a middle school in Tianjin as the research objects to explore the current situation of teachers’ questioning in senior high school English reading teaching from the perspective of thinking quality,aiming to answer the following three questions:1.What are teachers’ perceptions towards cultivating students’ thinking quality through questioning in English reading teaching?2.Whether teachers’ perceptions match their practices?3.What’s the impact of teachers’ questioning on students’ thinking quality development?To answer the above research questions,the study firstly uses interviews to analyze 6 teachers’ perceptions towards cultivation of students’ thinking quality through questioning.Then the paper analyzes the overall situation and the characteristics of teachers’ questions with classroom observation data of the 6interviewed teachers.Meanwhile,students experienced questioning from teachers and feelings about thinking quality are analyzed through questionnaire.By analyzing the interview data,the paper finds that most interviewed teachers realize the importance of cultivating students’ thinking qualities and they recognize the feasibility of using classroom questions to cultivate students’ thinking quality.However,classroom observation shows that teachers’ questioning types are mainly about low-order thinking ones.Questioning strategies are relatively monotonous,which is manifested with only repetition and prompt strategies.Students’ questionnaire data indicates that teachers’ questions can promote students’ cognitive and noncognitive development,but most questions point to the cultivation of low-order thinking skills.Finally,some pedagogical implications are provided and limitations are analyzed.