英语论文 Questioning Design and Questioning Skills in the English Class.doc

Questioning Design and Questioning Skills in the English ClassAbstract:Questioning is not only the most prevalently used teaching method in different sorts of classes, but also the indispensable step in the whole class teaching activity. Question design is of importance for teachers and who tends to be a teacher. Whats more, English is a main subject in Chinese English classes, which requires plenty of practice, needs cooperation between the teacher and students in class to jointly fulfill the verbal communication and the teaching-learning procedure. Good questions can aid teachers to finish classes successfully, make the students participate in the class actively, provide feedback for future teaching and learning, and its also and an important channel to exchange ideas between the teacher and students. This study aims at examining the problems that existing in questioning and finds ways to improve the efficiency of questioning, especially for practice teachers. Self-report data were collected from 50 practice teachers who had participated in the last terms teaching practice which was organized by our school in the rural schools, selected randomly in English teaching major, by using a closed-ended questionnaire. Qualitative results came from interviews with 5 practice teachers in our class and observations from 4 English teachers of Shengcun Middle School in Yuanyang(Where I had spent three months for my teaching practice). Findings provide evidence that there are 6 major problems in questioning: teachers ask questions too frequently; the questions are too general and not voluble; the direction of questions is not clear; the questions just focus on the minority of the students, most students are not involved in the activity; teachers dont give enough time to the students to think about the questions; teachers reactions to students answers are too mechanical. 1、Introduction T he quality of questioning directly affects the effects of teaching. As a qualified English teacher, theoretically, one must have the ability and skills to organize, develop and examine the efficiency of teaching activities with proper questions. However, its not hard for us to find that many English teachers cant ultimate question skills in class in the teaching practice; some of them even let others feel that its just a show, not a real class activity. Therefore, the teacher must pay great attention to the skill of asking questions in English class. Each question must be presented to accomplish the teaching objective and task. Only in this way may the English teachers ask question effectively and improve the skill of questioning so as to make contribution to our Chinese English education. In order to avoid some silly problems in questioning, I think its very indispensable to find the problems in questioning, and master some knowledge and skills about questioning. As we talked about our teaching experiences in rural schools after having been three-month practice teachers, I always heard my classmates said that designing effective questions was a big problem in their teaching. It was very hard for them to work out qualified questions. Almost half of their questions are invalid. Some of these questions are just simple “yes or no” pattern questions; some of these questions were not enlightening which could not stimulate students known knowledge ability and critical thinking. No matter how hard they try, it does not work. To master the skills of questioning is a big hard borne for teachers to chew, especially for new teachers. So my purpose of this study is to investigate the major problems teachers facing from in questioning and their bad effects on teaching activities, also hoping to find some valid ways to solve these problems and improve the efficiency of questioning. Three research questions are raised to achieve this purpose:（1）What are the major problems teachers facing from in questioning in their teaching practice?（2）What are the role and function of effective questioning in English class?（3）What can be done to improve the efficiency of questioning in English class? 2、Literature Review 2.1Cited from Richards Lockhart (Note 1)Besides its various functions, the author wants to draw attention to the point that questions can also contribute a lot to the classroom interaction structure. As a two-way interaction, questioning process has its potential to stimulate students interaction, thinking and learning. (Note 2The use of questions can thus change the way of teacher monologue and involve students in the active classroom interaction, which is much helpful to the development of their language competence.As for teachers questioning, there are still many problems. First, many high school teachers are not fully aware of the effects of teachers questioning on classroom interaction. Second, they pay little attention to the strategies of questioning in the classroom interaction. As a result, the teachers questioning is only a superficial form of classroom activity, lacking in the practical value. It cant really stimulate students initiatives, nor can it develop their interactive competence.2.2 Western scholar Digamma had put forward such a view: good questioning means good teaching.” This view is reasonable. Classroom questioning is a kind of common use in classroom teaching. But in fact, when classroom questioning become our attention and research focus, we found that, the oldest, the most commonly used teaching mode-questioning is despised and ignored. In the classroom, we just hear teachers simple, repeated, random questions; half of the classroom questioning is lack of scientific basis and scientific design; students do not dare or do not want to question, or is not good at asking questions.3、Study Methodology3.1 Participants3.1.1 Practice teachers. 50 practice teachers who had participated in the last terms teaching practice which was organized by our school in the rural schools, selected randomly in English teaching major, participated in the quantitative phase of study. All the participants had stand in front of the classroom for three month, so they have deep understandings of classroom questioning in English class. This made our questionnaire very objective and convincing.3.1.2Five practice teachers in our class participated in the quantitative phase of study. These practice teachers have deep feelings and understandings toward classroom questioning, and they also have spent much time on improving their questioning skills. So they took part in the interview part, and gave me good suggestions.3.1.3Teachers. Four English teachers of Shengcun Middle School in Yuanyang(Where I had spent three months for my teaching practice) were my observation objects. Under their help, I learned I lot about teaching method, and I also found problems in their classroom questioning. 3.2Procedure 3.2.1 The questionnaire of 13 multiple choice questions and 2 subjective question-and-answer drills, which were all in English, was delivered to the English major students who had participated in the last terms teaching practice which was organized by our school in the rural schools during their self-study in the library. Each questionnaire marked a number. Time to finish the questionnaire was limited to within 30 minutes. And very cell would be taken back.3.2.2 Qualitative investigation of the practice teachers in my class was designed as a conversational interview with open-ended questions, between one interviewer and 5 interviewees and it last for two and a half hours. This interview was designed a semi structured and semi unstructured interview. Some of the questions had been prepared before the interview and the interviewer also made some new questions according the situation. This made the interview went deeper, and also tired to save the interviewees time.3.2.3 I had learned on job for several classes during my teaching practice last semester. I mainly observed 4 English teachers classes, and had make notes about their questioning skills, their defects in questioning design. These notes also provide important evidence for this study.3.3 Data Collection The data were counted and worked out with the help of computer, including the numbers of practice teachers in different answer groups, the percentage and the mean. Some of the interviewees answers were Chinese, so they were translated into English, and subsequently the problems that existing in questioning in English class were analyzed. Because the focus of the study was on teacher questioning and the lessons observed were mainly carried out in whole-class settings, with little taped data available from small-group studentstudent interactions, I decided to focus the analysis on teacherstudent interactions. Verbal data from my notes about the behaviors of 4 English teachers of Shengcun Middle School in Yuanyang(Where I had spent three months for my teaching practice)were analyzed interpretively. In analyzing the data, I bore in mind the three dimensions suggested by Carlson (1991) for studies on questioning: context of questions, content of questions, and responses and reactions to questions. Thus, I considered aspects of questioning related to the situational contingencies of the conversations, the development of subject matter knowledge, and the management of turn-taking. 4、Result The major problems teachers facing from in questioning in their teaching practice include: teachers ask questions too frequently; the questions are too general and not voluble; the direction of questions is not clear; the questions just focus on the minority of the students, most students are not involved in the activity; teachers dont give enough time to the students to think about the questions; teachers reactions to students answers are too mechanical. 5、Discussion There was a general convergence between the results of questionnaire, interviews and observations. Below, the answers will be discussed to answer the three research questions mentioned in introduction. 5.1 What are the major problems teachers facing from in questioning in their teaching practice? 5.1.1Teacher asks questions too frequently. Some teachers question too frequently in a class. There are only 40 minutes in a class, according to the statistics; some teachers even can make more than 100 questions. This will bring side effects that made students couldnt think deeper. It didnt give students space and good chance to think about the questions. 5.1.2 The questions are too general and not voluble. First, sometimes the questions are too vague and general, and then the students cant understand the demands. The results were they couldnt answer the questions effectively. Some teachers ask many “why” in a class. Its important for us to focus on the reasons behind the surface. But there are still many ways to question, we dont have too ultimate “why” to question. Sometimes we can give children some materials; sometimes we design our questions according to students requirements. Second, teachers didnt take the value of the questions into consideration deeply when they designed the questions. So they just propose some silly question that already had the answers. These kinds of questions lack of levels and value of thinking, which made students, could speak out the questions without thinking. Its not good to developing students thoughts. 5.1.3 The direction of the questions is not clear. Teachers dont have a profound understanding of the teaching materials in the process of preparing, so that they cant find the connection points between students and the teaching materials. As a result, they question at will, which separates students from the key teaching points to discuss the problem. It just wastes time. 5.1.4The questions just focus on the minority of the students; most students are not involved in the activity. “Teachers should treat student equally, pay attention to students individual differences, teach students in accordance with their aptitude, promote the full development of students in teaching and education,” But some teachers favor the students who are good at studying when question. Most of the backward pupils are neglected. Some teachers used to question the students who sit near the platform. Thus, many students are not involved in the questioning activity. 5.1.5 Teachers dont give enough time to the students to think about the questions. Teachers just give students a very short period of time to consider and answer the questions. Then they point out the so called correct answers quickly. Some students even didnt get the point of the question as the teacher move to the next question. This satiation will make the students fallen easily. 5.1.6 Teachers reactions to students answers are too mechanical. Teachers reactions to students correct answers are just “very good”, “good job”,” good”. They seldom guide the students go deeper. Sometimes they even ignore students questioning. This make the interaction between teachers and students only stay in a relatively low level. 5.2 What are the role and function of effective questioning in English class? Questioning is a common technique used in English language teaching. The goal is to check if the students understand what they have been taught, and to enhance students involvement and to promote students creative thinking in classroom interaction. Classroom questioning is the main part of classroom teaching, and is one of the teaching methods to get the aim of classroom teaching. In a word, questioning plays a very important role in English teaching. It decides whether the teaching procedure is successful or not. 5.2.1 Promote the communication between teachers and students; close to the emotional communication between teachers and students. Teaching activities are bilateral activity between teacher and students. Everyone is learners in teaching activities. There are a lot of knowledge information and emotional intention communications in a variety of activities in teacher-students interactions and student student interactions. If teachers using equal, democracy and open classroom teaching, and allowing students to question, ask questions, and to discuss knotty problems in study, can not only active classroom teaching atmosphere, but also can harmonious the relationship between students and students, teachers and students. It also provides equal, democracy, open and harmonious study platform; help students to loosen body and mind. Thus, make students be willing to communicate with the teachers and students, foster physical and mental healthy students. 5.2.2 Attracts students attention, stimulates students interest in study. Teachers question in a proper time can make students be interested in thinking. It reaches the goal a good beginning is half the battle, interest is the best teacher. These kinds of questions not only provoke students desire to seeking knowledge, but also meet the students curiosity, to help students to solve the problem, cultivate students to dare to face difficulties. Finally, make students to cultivate the spirit of challenging and perseverance. Therefore, good questioning is both the doping and sedative, also a stream of cohesion; it can attract students attention, stimulate students interest in study, and control class order, and guarantee the smooth progress of the teaching activities. 5.2.3 Promotes the development of the students thinking and open the door of wisdom for students. “The study of contemplation thought up in doubt.” In the classroom teaching of English, in order to let the students open the door of wisdom, students must have doubts. As long as there are questions, students curiosity will promote them to constantly think, to explore. Thus, let students solve the problems in the classroom and out of the classroom actively, cultivate their thinking ability. 5.2.4 Exercise the students ability to organize language, to strengthen students language ability. Answering questions makes students have better, higher levels of opportunity to organize language and express oneself. Thus we can make students learn to organize language proficiently, accurately express his views, and can well exercise and improve the students language to express oneself with logic and flexibility. All of these will help courage the students to continue to communicate with the teachers. 5.2.5 Provide feedback information, help control class order. The teachers pointed questions not only can attract students attention, facing the different types of students, but also can control class order. Through students answers, teacher can realize how well the students understanding of the question is. Then teachers can make relatively fair evaluation toward students. And the teachers can also check the shortage of his or her teaching, and make it better. 5.3 What can be done to improve the efficiency of questioning in English class? These skills of questioning is cited from Xiaoyan Ma(School of Foreign Languages, Yangtze Normal University). 5.3.1Skills of Preparing for Questioning Effective questions request teachers make preparation before class. Even if some teachers can ask questions extemporaneously, sometimes the arrangement of questioning lack logic in many situations, or there are problems in language organization and the questions cannot make students use the knowledge or skills to answer as expected. So before asking questions in class, the preparation is required as follows:5.3.1.1Deciding on the Purpose for QuestioningTeachers ask questions with several goals and aims (Note 1