张静瑶
深圳市南山区南油小学 广东省深圳市 518051
Abstract: The application of questioning strategies to support interactive language teaching has arose prevalent interest of researchers. The present study compared the questioning strategies adopted by teachers from junior and senior grades in primary school in planning, controlling and providing feedback through classroom observation with modified checklist. The results showed both similarities and differences of strategy application. First, both junior and senior teachers applied display question more than referential ones, but as for the latter, the senior teacher applied more. Second, seeking answers from students was shared by them while self respond and providing guidance are more often performed by the latter. Third, positive feedback was highly used than negative one and quotation was the most remarkable way whereas senior students’ answers sometimes were neglected. Suggestions were provided for teachers in proper use of questioning strategies.
Key words: Interactive Language Teaching, questioning strategies, primary school
1. Introduction
The issue of how to apply questioning strategies to support interactive language teaching has attracted the interest of increasing number of researchers. Flanders (1970), Gertrude Moskowitz (1971, 1976) put forwards foreign language interaction model. Chiristenbury and Kelly (1983) highlighted the importance of questioning that appropriately use of questioning could fulfill lots of functions while Kinsella (1991) reminded that questions which were vague, silly, complex, rhetorical or random would made it hard for interaction.
If teachers can appropriately apply questioning to classroom teaching, the effect of interactive language teaching can be overwhelmingly maximized. Rare studies comparing strategies applied by teachers in primary school in junior grade and senior grade. The present study is to figure out:
1) What are the characteristics of questioning strategies in English classroom teaching in primary school?
2) Are there any similarities or differences among the questioning strategies applied by teachers in junior and senior grades? If yes, why? If no, why?
2. Literature Review
2.1 Definitions
Communicative language teaching interaction is the heart of communicative language teaching. During which, teachers and students send message, receive message and interpret them in the context, their thoughts, feelings and ideas are collaborative exchanged. The most important key to create an interactive language classroom is the initiation of interaction by the teacher. One of the best way is to develop a repertoire of questioning strategies, which can fulfill a number of different functions.
2.2 Reviews on Studies Abroad and at Home
Noreen (2010) claimed the uncovered multiple dimensions of the teacher's role in fostering beneficial group dialogue, including preparing students for collaborative work, forming groups, structuring the group-work task, and influencing student interaction through teachers' discourse with small groups and with the class. Edward (2013) conducted a survey focused particularly on how resistance can be avoided or overcome when negotiators applying a strategy for asking their counterparts questions.
Lu (2014) found questions would be more effective if they were more interesting, diversified and followed principle “i+1” input hypothesis. What’s more, comparative researches have been done in little studies. Wei and Yu (2014) compared questioning strategies in university, high school and primary school respectively.
3. Methodology
This study will be carried out in a high-profile foreign language primary school grade two and five. Teachers and students of these two classes will be chosen as participants in this study. The main instruments are observation checklist and voice recorder to observe teachers’ questing strategies for an empirical research. The checklist is modified based on the one used by Wei and Yu (2014). Two classes are observed and be noted down in the observation checklist. The first class is in Grade two about English Movies. The second class is in Grade five about Chinese poem. Verbal questions from records will be transcribed in details.
4. Results and Discussion
4.1 Characteristics of Questioning in English Classroom
Table 1 Questioning Strategies Checklist for the First Class
Table 2 Questioning Strategies Checklist for the Second Class
As for the first class, several significant characteristics could be concluded. First, when planning questions, teachers prefer display (62.5%), nearly half more than referential ones (37.5%). This verifies Long and Sato (1983)’s finding. What’s more, this research also found that there is positive correlation between numbers of referential question and not only seek answer from all students, the length of time for thinking, but also applying quotation as feedback strategy. Second, questions for all (32.8%) and to individual (39.3%) to respond are similar in number, which might indicate that the teacher tried to maximize students’ speaking time while the class was still under her control. Third, students were allowed less than 3 seconds (69.7%) to think unless the question was first raised or difficult to answer. Fourth, negative feedbacks are seldom offered.
As for the second class, first, the frequency of both display questions (60%) and referential ones (40%) are approximate while the former is a little bit more than the latter. Second, teacher’s self respond (25%) and guide (25%) occupied half and the former mainly took place in the first part while the latter occurred mostly in the second part. Third, not only referential questions but also some of display ones were given more than three minutes(57.1%) to think, which resulted in more than half of the questions, students have enough time for thinking. Fourth, as for the feedback strategy, quotation (53.2%) is favored by the teacher while making summery (19.1%) and negative ones like interruption (14.9%) is also noticeable.
4.2 Similarities and Differences of Questioning Strategies among two teachers
Graph1. Comparison of planning strategies/controlling strategies/feedback strategies of two Classes
As for the second research question, there are both similarities and differences among these teachers: first, two teachers applied display question more than referential ones, however, the teacher teaching in senior grade applied more referential questions. Second, two teachers sought answers from students most often. However, self respond and providing guidance are more often performed by the teacher in senior grade. Third, positive feedback is far more than negative one and quotation is the most remarkable way to provide feedback. However, the teacher in senior may sometimes neglect the answers from the students more often than teachers in junior grade.
5. Implication
Interaction is the key to present classroom teaching, which is student-centered and emphasis on discovery learning. By applying appropriate questioning strategies in planning, controlling and providing feedback, the class can go well. There are some suggestions for teachers in classroom questioning strategies from this comparative study: first, briefly speaking, teachers should try to raise more referential questions, which can help to not only cultivate student’s creative thinking but also maximize student’s output in interactive language teaching. Second, teacher in senior grade should show more attention to all students as teachers in junior grade do, meanwhile, provide them enough time for thinking. Third, teachers in senior grade should give more positive feedback for encouragement while teachers in junior grade need to include appropriate constructive criticism.
Nevertheless, to further study on this research, interview with teachers about the reasons why they applied those strategies and students’ responds to each questions should also be significantly worth observing and noting down. In this case, the reasons lead to different strategies application from the perspective of teachers themselves and to what extend are those strategies approved by students are of necessary in research on the effectiveness of questioning strategies.
References
Flanders, N.A. (1970). Analyzing Teaching Behavior. Addision-Wesley.
Christenbury, L., and Kelly, P. (1983). Questioning: A Path to Critical Thinking. National Council of Teachers of English.
Kinsella, Kate. (1991). “Promoting active learning and classroom interaction through effective question strategies.” Workshop presented at San Francisco State University, September 14.
Noreen M. Webb (2010). The teacher’s role in promoting collaborative dialogue in the classroom. British Journal of Educational Psychology. 79 (1) 1-28.
Edward W. Mils. (2013). Developing Strategies for asking questions in negotiation. Negotiation Journal 29 (4), 383-412.
Long, M.H., and Sato, C.J. (1983). Classroom foreigner talk discourse: Forms and functions of teachers’ questions. In H.W. Seliger &M.H. Long (Eds.), Classroom oriented research in second language acquisition (pp. 268-285). Rowley, MA: Newbury House.
吕婷, 2014，外语课堂提问策略探析[J]。教学与管理(2): 126-128。
魏薇、于璇 ，2014，小学语文教师课堂提问策略有效性的比较研究[J]。基础教育(4)，57-65。