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【Abstract】Raising questions in class plays an important role in English teaching. In order to pose questions successfully in classroom of middle school, this paper analyzes questioning in English teaching and then puts forward some strategies about the subject.
【Key words】English teaching; classroom questioning; strategies
As is well known to all, most classroom interaction is implemented by both teachers' asking questions and students' answering them, and questions are very important aspects of classroom interaction. They will bring the students' activity into full play, exploring their learning potential and stimulating their study interest. So if we pay more attention to teachers' questioning behaviors, classroom interaction is likely to be enhanced.
Unfortunately, quite a few teachers don't understand what type of questions they have raised or what their purpose is. Let alone what principle they have followed and what strategies they have adopted, or whether they get the expected result. That is to say, they have no idea on whether they raised the right question in right time, to right person in right form, whether they have made the students fall in an awkward situation or whether they have raised a question that the students don't know how to answer. All of these should be taken into consideration before or after posing any question. It is thus clear that questioning in English class deserves further research and inquiry.
Ⅰ.Significance of Questioning in English Class of Middle School
The significance of questioning in English class of middle school is as follows: Firstly, stimulating the students' interests and enthusiasm in study. Secondly, checking the students' pre'class and post'class work to get more information about their study, and helping the students review the contents which have been learned previously. Thirdly, when answering questions, ensure the students to have chance to make their opinions or thoughts known to the class. Only in this way can their creative thoughts be developed. Fourthly, giving students chance to hear other students' explanation on the material they have learned. Fifthly, questioning in class will help the teacher adjust the course of their teaching. Finally, it will help the teachers evaluate and appraise the situation of the students' study, and improve their teaching methods.
Ⅱ.Standards of Successful Classroom Questioning
Asking good questions fosters interaction between the teacher and his/her students. The following standards support the practice of asking successful questions. The first is stimulation. The questions will help stimulate and develop the students' thinking ability, and it is beneficial for students to understand more about the contents related. The second is clarity, which means teacher should express clearly when raising questions. In this case, the questions can be obviously understood by students so that they can know how to answer them with their capabilities. This can help fulfill students' confidence and help put on positive performance in class. The third is interest. Effective English classrooms are full of interesting questions posed by teacher. Teacher ought to take into consideration what questions he/she should ask which will attract the students’ attention. The question must be filled with challenge and excitation so that it can motive the students' interests to learn the language. The fourth is availability. That concerns about the degree of difficulty of the question. The question can be answered by most of the students rather than only top students and they will draw students into active involvement. In this way, students may feel they have the ability to answer questions and help raise their full attention in class. The fifth is extension. That means the question will give raise to the extensive and diverse answers. In other words, the question does not have just only one answer. It depends on different understandings, views and experience. The sixth is teacher reaction. The teacher's reaction is quite important to the students' reputation. In the process of questioning and answering, it requires the teacher to respect the students. Therefore, they should not discourage the students but encourage them no matter whether the answer is right or wrong.
Ⅲ.Strategies of Questioning in English Class of Middle School
1.Getting Preparation for Questions
Some of teachers' questions in class are extemporaneous. They have no preparation before class, so their questions are lacking in purpose. These questions have little effect on students’ interest. It is quite essential to know the material well in order to raise good questions in class. The teacher should have full preparation before class to raise different questions for different students. Generally speaking, there are some relevant materials after the text in English textbook for reference, but the main purpose of these questions is to check the students' understanding of the text. Most of the answers can be found in the texts. Only few need further thinking before answering it. So when the teachers prepare for class, they can raise some creative questions with knowledge and interest which will give guidance to students' logic thoughts. 2.Distribution of Questioning
In our country students of different levels receive the same teaching process in class. It requires English teachers to be familiar with their students and understand their students. They should raise different questions for different students in different time. As we all know, middle school students have strong sense of reputation as same as adults, so the teacher should always respect the students' positive sense of reputation, giving them a congenial and happy atmosphere to study. However, the teacher should neither always raise simple questions in order to care for the low'level students, nor should he always ask difficult question to meet the demand of high'level students. They should appropriately increase some difficult questions on the base of high'level questions.
3.Adjusting Questions Properly
If nobody answers the question for a long after the question is raised, the teacher should not be awkward. At this moment, they can try the following methods: first, repeat your question and stress the key point to draw the students’ attention; second, state the question with other simple words to help the students comprehend the question; third, ask the students to state the question in their own words to check whether the students understand the implication of the question; fourth, divide the question into several parts to let the students gain a clear idea of the question; fifthly, as for some question not clear enough, they should explain it more specifically.
Of course, the above are only for reference. If there still nobody answers the question after trying the above methods, it shows that maybe the question is not an effective question.
4.Proper Time Left for Students' Thinking
Waiting time is for students to think about the raised questions, which should be appropriate. Some teachers ask the students to answer their question immediately after raising it, there is no enough time for them to think. The teachers should give the students seconds' thinking time for different question. While for easy question, they should give at least 3-5 seconds. If they give students enough waiting time, they will get better effect. There will be more students willing to answer the question and the students will provide more distinctive view or complex answer. They will also offer more evidence to support their viewpoint. In this way students will feel more confident in class interaction. 5. Reaction towards Student Response
The teacher should react actively to the students' answer, giving them enthusiastic and accurate comments. They can try the following methods:
First, they should try their best to avoid saying the tags “Yes”, “I see”, “Okay” or “Fine” unchangeably to any answer. It is better to say “Yes, I can understand that.”, “I see what you mean.”, “I even haven't thought of that before.”, “That really makes a lot of sense.” and so on.
Second, they must give a clear explanation. In giving a clear explanation you should start from where your learners are. You may choose to summarize “what we know already” or indeed ask one of the students to do this task for the group.
Third, as for correct answers, the teacher should give them positive praise to make them feel what they said is valuable, meaningful and pertinent. It will make the students more confident in participating class communication.
Fourth, as for incorrect answers, it is important not to ignore wrong answers, if possible, alleviate the wrong answer response by telling the student where they were correct, or where they raised an interesting point. Then go on to tell them that other aspects of their responses were incorrect. In any cases, it is unnecessary to simply tell the student that they are wrong.
Conclusion
Language study is a course from language input to language output. It is not reasonable to have enormous input only without proper output. Questioning is a universally used activation technique in teaching, but simply posing a variety of questions hardly creates a climate for inquiry. Therefore, questioning plays a central role in English class. The teachers ought to use strategies of questioning skillfully according to different students, different material and different teaching purposes. Whether a question is successful or not depends on the connection of the purpose of questioning and the way of questioning. If the teacher's questioning arise all students' attention and makes them think hard, that is a successful one. They can help to stimulate the students' seeking and creativity thoughts. If the teacher gives them chance to express their minds, their language communicative ability will be improved through language practice. All in all, all teachers should shoulder the responsibility of improving and promoting the quality of questioning scientifically and artistically in class.
Bibliography:
[1]范宏雅.《话语分析》，上海：上海外语教育出版社，2002年，第78页.
[2]赵丕行.“外语教学中对待学生语言错误的科学态度” 《中小学外语教学》，2004(11)，第11页.
[3]Hall Prentice. Language Teaching Methodology. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Press,1982:35.
[4]胡春洞. 英语教学法[M].北京：高等教育出版社.1990.
[5]胡学文. 教师话语的特征及功能[M]. 外语教学与研究. 2004:28.
[6]邵永真. 大学英语教学大纲修订说明. 1998:3-5.
[7]王笃勤. 英语教学策略论[M].北京：外语教学与研究出版社，2002.
[8]叶彬福. 英语课堂提问策略[M].上海：上海外语教育出版社，2001.
[9]于全娟. 课堂提问在第二语言习得中的作用[M].山东外语教学.2005(4):76-79.
【Key words】English teaching; classroom questioning; strategies
As is well known to all, most classroom interaction is implemented by both teachers' asking questions and students' answering them, and questions are very important aspects of classroom interaction. They will bring the students' activity into full play, exploring their learning potential and stimulating their study interest. So if we pay more attention to teachers' questioning behaviors, classroom interaction is likely to be enhanced.
Unfortunately, quite a few teachers don't understand what type of questions they have raised or what their purpose is. Let alone what principle they have followed and what strategies they have adopted, or whether they get the expected result. That is to say, they have no idea on whether they raised the right question in right time, to right person in right form, whether they have made the students fall in an awkward situation or whether they have raised a question that the students don't know how to answer. All of these should be taken into consideration before or after posing any question. It is thus clear that questioning in English class deserves further research and inquiry.
Ⅰ.Significance of Questioning in English Class of Middle School
The significance of questioning in English class of middle school is as follows: Firstly, stimulating the students' interests and enthusiasm in study. Secondly, checking the students' pre'class and post'class work to get more information about their study, and helping the students review the contents which have been learned previously. Thirdly, when answering questions, ensure the students to have chance to make their opinions or thoughts known to the class. Only in this way can their creative thoughts be developed. Fourthly, giving students chance to hear other students' explanation on the material they have learned. Fifthly, questioning in class will help the teacher adjust the course of their teaching. Finally, it will help the teachers evaluate and appraise the situation of the students' study, and improve their teaching methods.
Ⅱ.Standards of Successful Classroom Questioning
Asking good questions fosters interaction between the teacher and his/her students. The following standards support the practice of asking successful questions. The first is stimulation. The questions will help stimulate and develop the students' thinking ability, and it is beneficial for students to understand more about the contents related. The second is clarity, which means teacher should express clearly when raising questions. In this case, the questions can be obviously understood by students so that they can know how to answer them with their capabilities. This can help fulfill students' confidence and help put on positive performance in class. The third is interest. Effective English classrooms are full of interesting questions posed by teacher. Teacher ought to take into consideration what questions he/she should ask which will attract the students’ attention. The question must be filled with challenge and excitation so that it can motive the students' interests to learn the language. The fourth is availability. That concerns about the degree of difficulty of the question. The question can be answered by most of the students rather than only top students and they will draw students into active involvement. In this way, students may feel they have the ability to answer questions and help raise their full attention in class. The fifth is extension. That means the question will give raise to the extensive and diverse answers. In other words, the question does not have just only one answer. It depends on different understandings, views and experience. The sixth is teacher reaction. The teacher's reaction is quite important to the students' reputation. In the process of questioning and answering, it requires the teacher to respect the students. Therefore, they should not discourage the students but encourage them no matter whether the answer is right or wrong.
Ⅲ.Strategies of Questioning in English Class of Middle School
1.Getting Preparation for Questions
Some of teachers' questions in class are extemporaneous. They have no preparation before class, so their questions are lacking in purpose. These questions have little effect on students’ interest. It is quite essential to know the material well in order to raise good questions in class. The teacher should have full preparation before class to raise different questions for different students. Generally speaking, there are some relevant materials after the text in English textbook for reference, but the main purpose of these questions is to check the students' understanding of the text. Most of the answers can be found in the texts. Only few need further thinking before answering it. So when the teachers prepare for class, they can raise some creative questions with knowledge and interest which will give guidance to students' logic thoughts. 2.Distribution of Questioning
In our country students of different levels receive the same teaching process in class. It requires English teachers to be familiar with their students and understand their students. They should raise different questions for different students in different time. As we all know, middle school students have strong sense of reputation as same as adults, so the teacher should always respect the students' positive sense of reputation, giving them a congenial and happy atmosphere to study. However, the teacher should neither always raise simple questions in order to care for the low'level students, nor should he always ask difficult question to meet the demand of high'level students. They should appropriately increase some difficult questions on the base of high'level questions.
3.Adjusting Questions Properly
If nobody answers the question for a long after the question is raised, the teacher should not be awkward. At this moment, they can try the following methods: first, repeat your question and stress the key point to draw the students’ attention; second, state the question with other simple words to help the students comprehend the question; third, ask the students to state the question in their own words to check whether the students understand the implication of the question; fourth, divide the question into several parts to let the students gain a clear idea of the question; fifthly, as for some question not clear enough, they should explain it more specifically.
Of course, the above are only for reference. If there still nobody answers the question after trying the above methods, it shows that maybe the question is not an effective question.
4.Proper Time Left for Students' Thinking
Waiting time is for students to think about the raised questions, which should be appropriate. Some teachers ask the students to answer their question immediately after raising it, there is no enough time for them to think. The teachers should give the students seconds' thinking time for different question. While for easy question, they should give at least 3-5 seconds. If they give students enough waiting time, they will get better effect. There will be more students willing to answer the question and the students will provide more distinctive view or complex answer. They will also offer more evidence to support their viewpoint. In this way students will feel more confident in class interaction. 5. Reaction towards Student Response
The teacher should react actively to the students' answer, giving them enthusiastic and accurate comments. They can try the following methods:
First, they should try their best to avoid saying the tags “Yes”, “I see”, “Okay” or “Fine” unchangeably to any answer. It is better to say “Yes, I can understand that.”, “I see what you mean.”, “I even haven't thought of that before.”, “That really makes a lot of sense.” and so on.
Second, they must give a clear explanation. In giving a clear explanation you should start from where your learners are. You may choose to summarize “what we know already” or indeed ask one of the students to do this task for the group.
Third, as for correct answers, the teacher should give them positive praise to make them feel what they said is valuable, meaningful and pertinent. It will make the students more confident in participating class communication.
Fourth, as for incorrect answers, it is important not to ignore wrong answers, if possible, alleviate the wrong answer response by telling the student where they were correct, or where they raised an interesting point. Then go on to tell them that other aspects of their responses were incorrect. In any cases, it is unnecessary to simply tell the student that they are wrong.
Conclusion
Language study is a course from language input to language output. It is not reasonable to have enormous input only without proper output. Questioning is a universally used activation technique in teaching, but simply posing a variety of questions hardly creates a climate for inquiry. Therefore, questioning plays a central role in English class. The teachers ought to use strategies of questioning skillfully according to different students, different material and different teaching purposes. Whether a question is successful or not depends on the connection of the purpose of questioning and the way of questioning. If the teacher's questioning arise all students' attention and makes them think hard, that is a successful one. They can help to stimulate the students' seeking and creativity thoughts. If the teacher gives them chance to express their minds, their language communicative ability will be improved through language practice. All in all, all teachers should shoulder the responsibility of improving and promoting the quality of questioning scientifically and artistically in class.
Bibliography:
[1]范宏雅.《话语分析》，上海：上海外语教育出版社，2002年，第78页.
[2]赵丕行.“外语教学中对待学生语言错误的科学态度” 《中小学外语教学》，2004(11)，第11页.
[3]Hall Prentice. Language Teaching Methodology. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Press,1982:35.
[4]胡春洞. 英语教学法[M].北京：高等教育出版社.1990.
[5]胡学文. 教师话语的特征及功能[M]. 外语教学与研究. 2004:28.
[6]邵永真. 大学英语教学大纲修订说明. 1998:3-5.
[7]王笃勤. 英语教学策略论[M].北京：外语教学与研究出版社，2002.
[8]叶彬福. 英语课堂提问策略[M].上海：上海外语教育出版社，2001.
[9]于全娟. 课堂提问在第二语言习得中的作用[M].山东外语教学.2005(4):76-79.