A Case And Comparative Study On Teachers’ Questioning Between Novice Teachers And Proficient Teachers In Senior High School English Reading Classes

After the key competencies in English subject were put forward,the cultivation of students’ thinking quality becomes an essential part in English teaching.In senior high school English reading classroom teaching,teachers’ questioning is one of the efficient ways to cultivate students’ thinking quality.However,novice teachers do less well in cultivating students’ thinking quality through questioning compared with proficient teachers.Thus,in order to better cultivate students’ thinking quality,this research tries to compare teachers’ questioning between novice teachers and proficient teachers in senior high school English reading classes from the perspective of thinking quality.Based on Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives and Krashen’s comprehensible input hypothesis,this study adopts classroom observation and interview to have a case and comparative study of teachers’ questioning between 4 novice teachers and 4 proficient teachers in 22 English reading classes of a senior high school in Hunan Province from the perspective of thinking quality with the following two questions:(1)What are the similarities and differences of teachers’ questioning between these 4 novice teachers and 4 proficient teachers in English reading classes of senior high school?(2)What are the reasons that cause the similarities and differences in teachers’ questioning between these novice teachers and proficient teachers?Through classroom observation,the author has found the similarities and differences of teachers’ questioning between these 4 novice teachers and 4 proficient teachers.The similarities in teachers’ questioning are: both novice teachers and proficient teachers ask more comprehension questions than other types of questions,and pay attention to the cultivation of students’ thinking quality in agility and flexibility;they ask evaluation questions mostly in pre-reading stage,and fail to cultivate students’ thinking quality in criticalness deeply because students only make subjective and surface evaluation.The differences in teachers’ questioning are: novice teachers ask more analysis questions and focus on students’ thinking quality in complexity;proficient teachers ask more evaluation questions and creation questions,and their attention turn to cultivating students’ thinking quality in criticalness and creativity.By means of interview,the author has discovered the reasons that lead to the similarities and differences between these novice teachers and proficient teachers.There are two reasons causing the similarities,which are heavy teaching tasks with limited time and teachers’ insufficient understanding of the questioning effects.And there are three reasons leading to the differences,which are different experience in handling students’ answers,teachers’ different language proficiency and teachers’ various teaching ways.Finally,according to the results from classroom observation and interview,the author provides three suggestions which can better cultivate students’ thinking quality through perfecting teachers’ questioning:(1)Teachers should pay close attention to the latest educational policies and change the teaching views related to questioning;(2)Teachers should pay more attention to the effects of students’ thinking quality cultivation;(3)Novice teachers should improve their self-learning abilities to quickly improve their teaching abilities and language proficiency.