Abstract

Effective questioning can stimulate the development of students’ critical and creative thinking, as well as their communicative competence. However, in China, many English teachers use excessive dead-ended and threatening questionings, which is not beneficial to the activation of students’ learning interest and the stimulation of their deep thinking.
In face of the current problem existing in English teachers’ questioning in China, the present study aims to investigate the impacts of the three variables, namely, (1) questioning types, (2) questioning strategies, and (3) wait-time, on teacher’s questioning in English classroom by means of case study, upon which to draw the elements of effective questioning in English classroom teaching and provide implications for teachers in actual teaching activity.
The findings indicate three problems in the English teaching activity. They are: (1) the teacher use excessive display and closed questioning type, which is not beneficial to evoke active thinking and stimulate the development of students’ communicative competence (2) few probing questioning strategy is used by the teacher, and the strategy of questioning chains used by the teacher fails to elicit any meaningful answers (3) the wait-time used by the teacher is not sufficient, which deprives students of enough time and space to think independently.
This paper suggests that (1) in view of the benefits the referential and open questioning types bring to the facilitation of students’ using target language to communicate, the promotion of real meaningful communication between the teacher and students and the activation of students’ mind, English teachers should use more questionings of these types (2) English teachers should view questioning strategies in their proper perspectives, avoiding the use of questioning chains and increasing the use of probing questioning strategy as much as possible (3) English teachers should provide students with sufficient wait-time after questioning and before responding to decrease the students’ failure to respond and evoke their higher-level thinking.

Key Words: Questioning Types; Questioning Strategies; Wait-time; Effectiveness of Questioning

摘要

有效的提问能够促进学生批判性与创新性思维以及交际能力的发展。然而，在中国，许多英语老师的提问多以封闭式，口令式为主，并未能有效地激发学习兴趣及启发学生思维。
针对当前中国英语课堂中教师提问的现存状况，本论文旨在通过案例分析，对以下三个变量，即(1)提问类型(2)提问策略(3)等待时间对英语课堂教学提问的影响进行探究，以得出英语课堂有效提问的元素，以期为教师在实际教学中提供借鉴。
研究表明本案例的教学活动中存在三个问题，即：(1)此教师使用了过多的展示型和封闭性提问，不利于激发学生的思维和提高其交际能力(2)此教师很少使用探究型提问策略，其使用的连环发问的策略不能引发学生有意义的回答(3)教师提问中的等待时间不充分，使学生没有足够的时间和空间进行独立思考。
本文研究所得出的结论为英语教师提高课堂有效提问作出如下建议：(1)鉴于参照型和开放型提问更有助于促使学生使用目的语交流，增加真正有意义的师生交流互动以及激发学生的创新性思维，英语教师应多运用参照型和开放型提问(2)英语教师应正确认识不同提问策略的作用，尽量避免使用连环发问的策略，尽可能多地使用探究型提问策略(3)英语教师在给出提问后及给学生作出评论前应为学生留有足够的等待时间，以减少学生的无效回答及促进其深层思考。

关键词：提问类型；提问策略；等待时间；提问的有效性