Teachers’ Questioning Strategies in EFL Classroom
1. Introduction
The increasing communication as well as cooperation among countries has brought about the growing prevalence of English. Therefore, the EFL (English as Foreign Language) Classroom interaction has become the main way for English learning. While, it is widely believed that the important form of classroom interaction is the teachers’ questions. Ellis (1990:125), pointed out that it is the teachers who have the ultimate responsibility for managing classroom interaction.①
From the fruit of the education psychologists we know that students’ thinking process tends to start from questions. Since the 1970s, the research abroad about questioning strategies has been almost comprehensive, and unceasingly thorough. Stevens (1912) stated that approximately eighty percent of a teacher’s school day was spent asking questions to students. The teacher approximately asks 2-4 questions per minute.② Good questions recognize the wide possibilities of thought and are built around varying forms of thinking. Good questions are directed towards learning rather than determining what has been learned in a narrow sense. In our EFL classroom, however, the questioning strategies-the core of effective teaching has not been made a hit. Problems are present here and there. Some teachers ask questions at will; some ask too many or too few questions. Besides, uninteresting questions, inadequate wait-time, the improper way of directing questions, all of which discourage the students from learning, thinking and participating in class. Gradually, teachers’ enthusiasm in teaching is dropping accordingly. English learning has become a burden either for teachers or for students.
The purpose of this thesis is to provide teachers with information on proper questioning strategies (such as classroom questioning planning, emotion factors of students and so forth) in EFL classroom to facilitate the learning process. It is expected to provide the beneficial references to the teaching. Naturally, students’ mastery of English is bound to greatly improve.
2. Some Basic Concepts of Teachers’ Questioning Strategies
2.1Questioning Strategies
Questioning strategies refer to the techniques used by teachers when they intend to get a response from students. “Through the appropriate strategies in formulating and ask questions,” Ornstein(1990:284) said,“the teacher can help students understand and utilize content and formulate ideas, concepts, relationships and principles.”③It is generally acknowledged that questioning is closely related to the following aspects: the types of questions, questions directing, wait-time and question modifications.
2.2 Question types
Teachers’ questions can be classified into two categorizations: display and referential questions. Display question can be called Yes or No question whose answer is fixed. Such question is always somewhat superficial. Take the text of My First Job in A New English Course 3 for example, a teacher may ask “Did the headmaster like the young man at first sight?” Well, we see from the sentence “He looked at me with an air of surprised disapproval”, the answer can be and only is “No, he didn’t”. Thus, the question can be regarded as display question. Whereas, it is commonly considered that the referential one is the Wh- questi，英语论文题目，英语毕业论文 |
