Study on the Five Aspects of English Classroom Questioning

Ma+Xiaojie

【Abstract】Classroom questioning is an effective and interactional strategies which mainly used by teachers to communicate with students and observe the achievements of teaching objectives.Therefore，making a research on English classroom questioning has great practical significance.This thesis focuses on five aspects of it：types，wait-time，distribution，skills and feedbacks.Through researching the five aspects，some finding are put forward in the thesis which may have great practical and instructional significance towards English teaching.

【Key words】English classroom questioning； five aspects

【摘要】課堂提問是一種重要有效的互動策略，教師通過課堂提問跟學(xué)生進行交流并且能夠觀察到課堂目標(biāo)的達成情況。因此對英語課堂提問進行研究有重大的實際意義。本文主要研究課堂提問的五個方面：提問類型，提問后等待時間，問題分配，提問技巧和反饋。通過對上述五個方面的研究，本論文提出一些研究結(jié)果與建議。該研究結(jié)果會對英語教學(xué)有巨大的實際指導(dǎo)意義。

【關(guān)鍵詞】英語課堂提問 五個方面

Classroom questioning is a series of signal stimulus sent out by teachers to arouse students attention and illuminate students to think，and at the same time，it is also a process that teachers give feedbacks to the answers of the students.

1.Types：Long&Sato （1983） classifies questions into two types，echoic question and epistemic question which contains display questions and referential questions.Display questions means questioners have known answers by asking to test learners.Referential questions are to get information and questioners dont know answers.

2.Wait-time：The effectiveness of questioning depends on the length of wait-time to some degree.Students need different preparing time because of the different length of reading materials so different questions need different wait-time.In principle，teachers should give students enough time to prepare for the answers and think over so that students can comprehend the questions well and teachers can get satisfied answers.

3.Distribution：Teachers should offer equal opportunities of answering questions and enrich students to think together （Hu Qingqiu，2004）.This not only refers to space distribution of questions but also the distribution of different knowledge levels of students.According to the principle of equal opportunity，every student should have opportunities to answer questions and take part in the class activities.

4.Skills：The skills include probing，prompting，repeating，self-explaining and redirecting.Probing means that when students cant answer questions，teachers add several relative but easier questions to lead students to continue their thinking.Prompting means that teachers give some clues or similar examples to inspire students thinking.Self-explaining means to put complex questions into several small questions.Redirecting refers to change the ways or angles of asking questions and use the familiar sentence structures or words to restate the questions.

5.Feedbacks：After students answer questions，teachers make responses and comments towards their answers.There are two kinds of feedbacks，one is positive feedbacks，the other is negative feedbacks.Positive feedbacks can make students feel excitemenst of success，enrich their confidence and inspire their motivation of study.

By researching these five aspects，some suggestions are put forward towards English teachers：1） Teachers should raise more reference questions related to the real life of students.2） The wait-time should lengthen to 5 seconds or more.3） The distribution of questioning should be reasonable to let every student have the chance to show himself.4） Teachers should make a combination of a variety of questioning skills，avoid using repeating skill only.5） Teachers should give priority to praise and encouragements，avoid using the same assessments.When students make mistakes，teachers do not critisize or blame them instead of leading them to self-correction.

References：

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