A Research On Teachers’ Questioning In Senior High School English Reading Classes On Cultivating Students’ Thinking Qualities

As the proposal of English core quality,cultivating students’ thinking quality has become an important part of English classroom teaching in senior high school.In senior high school English reading classroom teaching,teachers’ questioning plays a vital role in cultivating students’ thinking quality.Based on Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives and Long’s Interaction Hypothesis,this study conducts an in-depth analysis and research on teachers’ questioning in senior high school English reading classes from the perspective of cultivating students’ thinking quality.This research takes 3 senior high school English teachers from the No.9 Middle School in Yichun City,Jiangxi Province as the research subjects,and uses audio and video recording to record and transcribe the teachers’ questions of 12 senior high school English reading classes and interviews with 3 teachers.The thesis tries to answer the following three questions:(1)In the three teachers’ classes,what is the distribution of question types at different reading stages?(2)What is the purpose of this questioning feature for the cultivation of students’ thinking quality?(3)What are the factors that affect teachers’ classroom question design?Through data analysis and discussion,this study finds that:(1)In the pre-reading stage,the number of questions of low-level thinking is more than that of high-level thinking,among which the number of understanding questions is the largest,and the number of application and creative questions is the smallest.In the while-reading stage,the number of questions of low-level thinking is much larger than that of high-level thinking,among which the number of comprehension questions is the largest,and the number of application questions is the smallest.In the post-reading stage,the number of questions of high-level thinking is more than that of low-level thinking,among which the number of evaluative questions is the largest and the number of memory questions is the smallest.In addition,the number of creative questions in the post-reading stage is higher than that in the pre-reading stage and while-reading stage.(2)A large number of low-level questions raised by teachers in the pre-reading and while-reading stages,such as memory questions,comprehension questions etc.,can help students become familiar with the topics,prepare necessary language and cultural knowledge,and guide students to master the genre,structural features,themes and details of the reading materials and other information to help students identify and master key words and related concepts,which is conducive to cultivating students’ agility,flexibility and complexity of thinking.In the post-reading stage,with the increase of high-level questions,students’ critical thinking and creative thinking are developed.(3)The main factors that affect this situation include the level of students,the difficulty of teaching materials,the exam oriented environment,time limit,and the factors of teachers.This study suggests that high school English teachers ought to strengthen the study of thinking quality and consciously integrate the idea of cultivating students’ thinking quality into English reading teaching.When teachers design questions,the proportion of questions at different levels should be allocated reasonably,so as to promote the development of thinking,guide students to carry out in-depth reading from low level to high level,and better cultivate students’ thinking quality.In addition,education departments and schools should provide teachers with some training courses related to teachers’ questioning to improve their awareness and questioning efficiency.