A Research On Teacher Questioning In English Class Of Junior High School

As an essential part of teacher discourse,teacher questioning is commonly used by teachers and plays a critical role in English classroom teaching and influences the effectiveness of classroom.Teacher questioning not merely encourages students to think positively but provides an opportunity for students’ language input and output.However,many researchers and scholars concentrate on teacher questioning in colleges and universities;few are about junior high school English classroom.Therefore,teaching questioning in junior high school English classroom is worth noticing.The thesis aims to understand present problems of teaching questioning in junior high school English class by knowing about class status.Moreover,the thesis attempts to seek for the causes.Finally,the author will provide some constructive and practical suggestions for English teachers of middle school to promote teaching questioning.Based on the above statements,the research questions are described as follows:1)What are the problems and causes of teaching questioning in junior high school English class?2)How can teachers improve teacher questioning?The paper chooses Damiao Middle School in Songshan District in Chifeng City as a survey study.Classroom observation,questionnaire survey and interview are the main methods introduced in this paper.Classroom observation is used to record teachers’ questions and students’ respond to questions,through classroom observation scale: types of questioning,wait time of teachers,distribution of questions,strategies of questioning,feedback of teachers.It lasts for 8 weeks.150 students from Grade 8and ten English teachers of of Damiao Middle School in Songshan District in Chifeng City participate in questionnaire.Apart from classroom observation,questionnaire survey and interview are taken as supplements for the survey.The results of the research show status quo of teacher questioning in junior high school.First of all,display questions are preferred by most English teachers and the number is much larger than referential ones.Second,there are some differences in the distribution of questions.For example,teachers are usually inclined to care for students who are in the middle level in class when asking questions whereas students with high scores and lower scores are not frequently asked.Third,most teachers just say such simple praise like “Good” “Good job” “ Right” in terms of teacher’s feedback and their feedback is basically mechanical and tedious.In the observation,the author finds students are not actually encouraged by such simple feedback in the long run.On the contrary,they would neglect teacher’s feedback.Through the deep research,some factors can be known.First,teachers do not attach importance to teacher questioning.Many teachers ask questions in order to complete pedagogical tasks instead of meeting students’ real language needs.Second,teachers lack basic theories about teacher questioning.These two reasons lead to unsuccessful teacher questioning and inefficient teaching.Therefore,this teaching concept and method can not develop students’ language learning.Considering the above causes,the paper attempts to put forward several pertinent and practical measures for English teachers.First of all,teachers should strengthen theoretical study of teacher questioning.Second,teachers should put relevant theories into questioning design.Third,regular teaching and research meetings should be carried out and teachers discuss about present problems on teacher questioning in the course of teaching and make some modifications.