/q？ D6 % D0 % CD % E2 % D3 % A2 % D3 % EF % BD % CC % D3 % FD % C2 % DB % CE % C4 & amp； CT = 17 & amp； pn = 0 & ampikaslist & amprn= 10

This survey takes English teachers and foreign teachers in Grade Two and Grade Two classes of a key middle school in a province as samples, and makes a follow-up survey of Chinese and foreign teachers' classroom questions from the perspective of classroom observation and student feedback by means of classroom records, questionnaires and interviews. The results show that there are many differences between Chinese and foreign teachers in classroom questioning strategies, some of which reflect the differences between Chinese and western teachers in cultural background and teaching philosophy. In order to further develop our English teaching, it is necessary for us to learn from each other's strong points, reflect on the quantity, quality, ways and methods of classroom questioning, and make it perfect.

Keywords China teachers' questioning strategies are different from those of foreign teachers.

I. Introduction

The acquisition of target language is the ultimate goal of language education. Only by understanding and mastering the dynamic process of classroom communication can teachers better monitor and adjust the classroom communication mode. Classroom communication mode determines the opportunity and effect of students' participation in classroom activities through language and the acquisition of target language. In recent years, many studies have proved that interaction is the key to language classroom. Teacher-student interaction is an important part of classroom interaction, which is mainly triggered and maintained by teachers' words, especially teachers' questions. Teacher talk [refers to the language used by teachers to organize and engage in teaching in the classroom. Loanwords [refers to the modifiers used by native speakers to non-native speakers (Ellis 1994:288). Compared with speeches in social environment, teachers usually make some adjustments to their own words to make students easier to understand in class. Teachers' questioning is an important part of teachers' discourse and an important means to organize classroom teaching. The implementation of questioning requires certain strategies. The choice of questioning strategies varies from person to person, from different views on language and education, and even from different cultural backgrounds. At present, cross-cultural communication between different nationalities or regions is becoming more and more frequent, so the study of teacher talk, including classroom questioning, should shift from one-dimensional self-study to two-dimensional comparative study. By comparing and analyzing Chinese and foreign teachers [this article refers to English teachers in China and English teachers in China, hereinafter referred to as "China teachers" and "foreign teachers". Different questioning strategies can complement each other, improve the concept of language and education and promote the reform of English classroom teaching. Based on the above understanding, this study carried out a survey on the differences between Chinese and foreign teachers' questioning strategies, which lasted for one semester. The subjects of the survey are senior two and senior two students in a middle school, their English teachers and foreign teachers. The content of the survey is the classroom questioning strategies of Chinese and foreign teachers. The purpose of the survey is to understand the differences between Chinese and foreign teachers' questioning strategies in class, investigate their influence on students' language output, and provide practical reference for language teaching.

Second, the research background

(A) theoretical basis

The purpose of language learning and teaching is to cultivate learners' communicative competence and skills. Communication means participation, and active participation in various communication activities is an effective way for learners to learn and acquire a real language. Interaction can help students to participate in various communicative activities in class. What is "interaction" in second language acquisition? Jing (198 1, quoted from rivers 1997: 4) explained: "information exchange is the basic unit of discourse ... language interaction is a cooperative activity, and it is a triangular relationship among information disseminators, information recipients and situations." Teacher-student interaction means that teachers and students listen, talk and negotiate with each other in the same classroom environment. Real interaction requires teachers to step out of the "focus" position, fully implement all kinds of classroom activities, accept all kinds of viewpoints and tolerate all kinds of mistakes made by students in communication (Rivers, 1997: 9). Orlet (1984) regards interaction as the most basic element of classroom education, because everything happens in the classroom and in the process of real face-to-face interaction. This view theoretically emphasizes the relationship between interaction and second language learning.

Krashen's "Input Hypothesis" (1985) holds that people can only acquire language if they get understandable input. This kind of input must be centered on meaning, not form. The most important thing for successful language acquisition is to provide learners with as many comprehensible inputs as possible. In second language learning, the language used by teachers is the most abundant and reliable source of comprehensible input.

Long's "Interaction Hypothesis" (1983, quoted from Ellis, 1994) not only emphasizes the importance of comprehensible language input, but also emphasizes the promotion of meaning negotiation to language acquisition. Long believes that if the speaker has the conditions to accept and participate in interactive adjustment, it will expand the opportunity of second language acquisition. He also stressed that "two-way communication" will better promote interactive adjustment and meaning negotiation, thus improving the intelligibility of language input.

Swain's "Output Hypothesis" (1985, quoted from Ellis, 1994) holds that learners must have the opportunity to output their own language in addition to the necessary comprehensible input, so that their language accuracy and fluency can reach the level of their mother tongue. Swain described learners' participation in meaningful interactive activities as being "pushed" to develop their language skills.

literature review

Steve Walsh (1999) pointed out that "the biggest difference between foreign language classroom teaching and other classroom teaching is that language is both the purpose of learning and the medium of teaching. Therefore, whether the classroom teacher-student interaction mode is properly controlled will have a positive or negative impact on learners' output and communicative competence. "In recent 20 years, linguists have paid more and more attention to the fact that learners' successful output in the classroom is largely related to the teaching language used by teachers and the interaction between teachers and students in the classroom, such as classroom communication structure, the number of words of teachers, the way of asking questions, the arrangement of communication content, the form of students' participation, teachers' patience, the control of topics and turns, the handling of mistakes, the understandability of language input, and the negotiation of meaning.

In view of the role of teacher-student interaction in language classroom teaching, relevant scholars have done a lot of empirical research in this regard. For example, Chaudron (1988) made a detailed study of teachers' questions and found that most ESL teachers talked too much in class, and most of the teachers' speaking time was occupied by questions; Orlet & Bailey (199 1) also confirmed that teachers spend 1/2 to 1/3 time asking questions. On the contrary, some studies show that if the classroom is student-centered, teachers' words will change a lot. Zhou Xing and zhou yun (2002) adopted the method of natural investigation. The research shows that in the classroom teaching of "student-centered thematic teaching mode", the amount of teachers' words is obviously reduced, and there are more reference questions than display questions, more interactive adjustments and more positive feedback. Teachers' control of the classroom is basically through language, which reveals the relationship among teachers' discourse, teacher-student interaction and learning opportunities. Steve Walsh (2002) explained that teachers can promote or hinder students' face-to-face communication in class through their language, thus emphasizing the necessity of teachers' ability to control their language use in teacher education and classroom practice. Teachers should improve questioning strategies to promote and expand students' learning opportunities.

Teachers are accused of using too many explanatory questions in class. Tsui( 1995) made a detailed study of teachers' questions. She found that the teacher not only asked a lot of questions in class, but also mostly showed them. If there are no necessary reference questions in class, students' language output will be greatly affected. Brock (1986) made a similar discovery. He investigated four experienced ESL teachers and 24 non-native students, and investigated the influence of high-frequency reference problems on adult classroom communication. The results show that in the control group where teachers use a large number of reference questions, students' answers are longer, more complex in structure and with more conjunctions.

Noonan (1987) pointed out that some studies show that some language classroom interactions are not communicative at all. Improper use of questioning strategy may lead to that kind of "non-communication" A classroom communication study conducted by David Nunan (1997) reveals this non-communication interaction mode. Through the recording, video recording and analysis of five ESL classes, he pointed out that teachers need to change themselves and understand what really happened in the classroom. He also provides some strategies for real communication. He insists that using reference questions frequently instead of displaying questions is a good way to promote communicative language.

Whether students can actively answer teachers' questions is a problem faced by most Chinese teachers. In a study of students' answers, White &; Lightbown (1984, SETSUI 1996) found that in a 45-minute class, there were 200 questions on average, and 42% of the questions had no answers. Tsui (1985, see Tsui 1996) investigated two second language classes, and found that the teacher spoke 80% of the time, and no students answered immediately, only one question was asked by the students. Tsui (1996) explores a very special problem through the action research project of English teachers in Hong Kong, which is what teachers think: students are silent in class. An unexpected discovery is that teachers themselves are the main reasons for students' silence, such as teachers' intolerance of silence and words that teachers don't understand. She also provides some strategies for successful communication classroom teaching, such as prolonging waiting time, improving teachers' questioning skills, accepting various answers, supporting peers in group cooperation and taking meaning as the center. Noonan (199 1) also pointed out that "waiting time" is very rare in the process of teachers' actual questioning. Even after some special training, some teachers never want to extend the waiting time by one or two seconds. He found that students' participation rate was higher in those classes where the teacher extended the waiting time by three to five seconds after asking questions.

Chinese and foreign linguists have done a lot of research and investigation on teacher talk (including teachers' classroom questioning), and their research results provide a more scientific quantitative basis for understanding language classroom interaction, and also provide many theoretical basis for this study. However, most of their investigations and studies are not conducted in foreign first or second language classes (Brock1986; ; Noonan1987; chaud Ron 1998； Orlet & Bailey1991; tsui 1995； Jin Chuanbao1997; Dobinson 200 1) was introduced in domestic university classrooms (Wang Hengnian1993; Zhu1994; Zhao Xiaohong1998; Yao Xianlin1999; Mu Fengliang 2000; Zhang Huaijian 2001; Zhou Xing (2002), English classroom teaching in middle schools in China is rarely involved (Wang Qiang et al. 200 1). As for the comparative study of Chinese and foreign teachers' classroom questioning, of course, it is even less. Therefore, in this sense, this survey is a useful exploration.

Third, research and design.

deliberate on a problem

Teachers' questions occupy most of the classroom time and have been proved to have a great influence on classroom interaction. In order to explore the use of questioning strategies by language teachers, this study attempts to start with the following questions:

1. What are the differences between Chinese and foreign teachers in the application of classroom questioning strategies?

2. What is the relationship between the application of questioning strategies and learners' acquisition of the target language?

3. How to improve teachers' discourse (including questioning strategies) in middle school English classroom teaching?

(2) Research tools

1. Class record

Classroom record is to record the classroom on the spot, and then measure the factors such as language, decoration and feedback used by teachers in China and foreign countries according to the recorded materials, and analyze the differences between Chinese and foreign teachers in the use of classroom questioning strategies.

2. Questionnaire

The object of the questionnaire survey is students, and the content of the design involves students' feelings about the language, methods and skills used by teachers in China and foreign countries, as well as students' preferences for teachers in China and foreign countries. By understanding students' personal experience of asking questions to Chinese and foreign teachers, this paper explores the similarities and differences and practical effects of Chinese and foreign teachers' questioning strategies from the perspective of students.

interview

Among them, 10 students and 2 teachers from China were interviewed. The individual interview questions are as follows: (1) Which class is more interesting, the self-taught teacher or the foreign teacher? Why? (2) Who talks more in class, the teacher or the students? (3) What kind of questions do you like to ask, open or closed? (4) What will you do if the students don't answer your questions?

(3) Theme

This survey randomly selected two classes of Grade Two and Grade Two in Ningbo City, Zhejiang Province as the survey objects. From September 20065438 to September 2002, a semester-long follow-up survey was conducted among teachers, foreign teachers and students in China, involving junior high school students 105 and senior high school students 1 13. The average age of students is 15 and 18 respectively. The average age of teachers in China is 28 years old, with a bachelor's degree and an average of 5 years' work experience. T 1 and T2 are English teachers in Grade Two, and T3 and T4 are English teachers in Grade Two. F 1 and F2 are graduates of Yale University in the United States. All the young people who volunteer to serve in China are 24 years old. They have been teaching in this school for two years and have been recognized. Now it is the teaching task of oral English class in senior two. Make two classroom recordings of teachers to obtain effective recording materials 10; After a questionnaire survey of students, 208 questionnaires were collected, of which 195 were valid.

(4) data collection

First, two classes of Chinese and foreign teachers (*** 16) were recorded on the spot, and then observed and measured according to the converted recording draft. All the measurements of the rhythm, frequency, type, mode, distribution, modification and feedback of questions are based on classroom observation and recording materials, and are finally presented in the form of statistical tables. Secondly, the purpose of the questionnaire is to investigate the actual teaching effect of Chinese and foreign teachers from the perspective of students, including the use of questioning strategies, and finally present the statistical results in the form of charts. Finally, some teachers and students were interviewed to find out what students and teachers really think about the application of questioning strategies, and some details were recorded and presented.

Four. Findings and analysis

(A) overall comparison

1. Language for asking questions

Comparing the characteristics of Chinese and foreign teachers' classroom questioning language and social questioning language, this survey found that they all have a * * * nature-modification. Chinese and foreign teachers tend to revise their questions so that students can understand their questions or answer them conveniently. In phonetics, teachers tend to slow down, have clear pronunciation standards, pause more, and reduce linking and ellipsis; In terms of vocabulary, teachers choose more basic vocabulary, less common sayings, less indefinite pronouns and less omitting definite articles; Syntactically, the sentence structure of the teacher's questions is complete and short, with few subordinate sentences and conditional sentences, less passive voice, more present tense and regular word order. Generally speaking, Chinese and foreign teachers have the characteristics of * * * in asking questions, and the lower the level of students, the more obvious this characteristic is.

2. The actual effect of the classroom

Table 2 shows students' answers to teachers' questions and teachers' actual influence on classroom questions. Judging from the effect of students' participation in teachers' questioning or language classroom, the application effect of Chinese and foreign teachers' questioning strategies shows certain differences in different grades. On the surface, the second-year classroom response of China Normal University is good. In fact, only some students with high language level and fluent expression actively participate. The scope of students' participation in teacher-student interaction is not wide, and the average amount of students practicing target language is not large. The classroom atmosphere in senior two is dull, and students are unwilling to answer the teacher's questions actively. The classroom atmosphere of foreign teachers is more active, but because of the limited vocabulary, low expression ability, low success rate of answering questions, too loose classroom and low learning efficiency; Senior two students perform better.

3. Students' feelings

Students' feelings about the teacher's class can also reflect from one side whether the teacher's teaching methods (including questioning strategies) are appropriate. Figure 1 How much do students like Chinese and foreign teachers?

It is clear from the figure 1 that foreign teachers are very popular with middle school students (82% vs18%; %; 66% to 34%). Besides students' curiosity about foreigners, foreign teachers' classes are mainly relaxed, vivid, vivid and humorous. With the improvement of students' grades and English language proficiency, classroom interaction has also increased, and the success rate of communication has also been greatly improved. Students like foreign teachers more and more.

(2) Specific comparison

1. Information release strategy

Note: It is calculated as 45 minutes per class. ? Refers to the proportion of teacher talk in classroom time; ? Refers to the proportion of teachers' questions in teachers' discourse.

Table 3 shows that in a 45-minute English class, Chinese teachers' speeches account for 53-7 1% of the classroom teaching time, of which 60-80% are used to ask questions. With the improvement of students' grades, the proportion of teachers' speeches is also increasing, but the proportion of questions is decreasing. Foreign teachers' speeches account for 33-46% of the whole classroom teaching time, among which questions account for 44-67% of teachers' speeches, and with the improvement of students' level, the proportion of foreign teachers' speeches shows a downward trend. This statistical result shows that there are great strategic differences between Chinese and foreign teachers in the control of teachers' talk time and question time.

The characteristic of foreign teachers' courses is that teaching basically revolves around activities or tasks, and teachers' main job is to design teaching tasks, screen and transform teaching materials. The teaching topics are very extensive, and there is no fixed teaching material. It is observed that due to different cultural habits, foreign teachers have great obstacles in language communication between teachers and students. Teachers repeat many words, the progress of classes is slow, and the discipline is loose. On the other hand, junior students have great difficulties in listening, speaking, reading and writing due to the lack of certain language knowledge and skills, and their vocabulary is small and their expression is incoherent. Therefore, although the proportion of students speaking is not less than 55%, in fact, students speak slowly and the class density is not high, so the students' real practice is not very large. With the improvement of students' language level, students' expression ability is enhanced, their reaction speed is accelerated, and the communication between teachers and students becomes easier. Under the guidance of foreign teachers, students can successfully complete various learning tasks. In addition to answering the teacher's questions, he can also perform well in discussion, debate, role-playing, lyrics, action planning and other projects. The classroom atmosphere is strong, and there are more interactions between teachers and students.

English teachers in China attach great importance to students' understanding of written materials and pursue the correctness from content to form. In the past three years, with a set of teaching materials as the only language input material, the classroom atmosphere is serious, the pace is fast, and the teachers' mood is more urgent. In terms of time allocation, teachers in junior high school spend more time asking questions, but students take up too much time in practicing teaching activities such as dictation and sentence making. In senior high school, due to the increase of text length, difficulty, grammar and vocabulary items, teachers spend their main time on the explanation of words, and students have less opportunities to communicate and express themselves naturally. By comparing the distribution of teachers' discourse, we can easily find that English classroom teaching in middle schools is still teacher-centered and textbook-based. Teachers basically aim at unblocking language points, and then assign a lot of exercises as consolidation. Classroom is still the third step: text understanding-language point explanation-written practice.

2. Information search strategy

(1) the choice of questioning methods

In most ESL classes, the main part of classroom interaction is guided by teachers' questions (Tsui, 1995: 23), which is the main way for teachers to seek information. Whether the questioning method is effective or not is directly related to teachers' acquisition of information and students' output of language. Early research on L 1 class divided the problem into open-ended problem and closed-ended problem (Barnes 1969, quoted from Chaudron 1988: 126). L2 researchers divide the problems into specific problems and general information problems (chaudron 1988: 126). The essential difference between these two classifications is whether to expect a specific (usually short) closed answer or an open answer with a certain quality (including length). For students' language output, closed questions have more restrictions than open questions. In closed-ended questions, if teachers provide sentence structure as an inducement for appropriate answers, students will be more restricted (Tsui, 1995: 26). As people pay more and more attention to the communicative nature of classroom language, questions are divided into explicit questions and referential questions. The former refers to checking questions about knowledge, and the teacher knows the answer to the questions; The latter refers to the problem that the teacher has no clear answer, and it is a problem with high cognitive level. Reference questions can be open or closed (statement questions are generally closed). If open questions or reference questions can promote learners' expressive ability, then reference questions will promote more meaningful communication between teachers and learners (Chaudron 1988: 127). Therefore, it is very necessary to study the ways and strategies of teachers' questioning.

From Table 4, we can know that in the classroom, Chinese and foreign teachers have strategic differences in the choice of questioning methods. Domestic teachers ask more questions than foreign teachers, and the proportion of presentation questions is surprisingly high. The main reason is that our teacher pays too much attention to checking students' knowledge, and the teacher asks students to answer questions that the teacher knows or prepares in advance. In contrast, foreign teachers pay more attention to encouraging students to express themselves creatively. The following are two classroom questioning records of Chinese and foreign teachers in grade two:

Extract 1

What is Liz's favorite food?

Student: Noodles and ...

T: Noodles? not exactly ...

S: hamburgers.

T: that's right.

Excerpt 2

What good things did the animals do? What bad things do animals do?

S 1: cows produce milk.

S2: We can eat beef every day.

T: good. Cows make milk and beef for us. What bad things can a cow do?

S3: Mad cow disease, people are sick.

T: great. Cows get sick. Okay, does anyone else have any other ideas?

In Extract 1, the teacher has set the only acceptable answer in advance; In excerpt 2, the teacher encourages students to find a series of acceptable answers. Excerpt 1 is a typical classroom question asked by English teachers in China, that is, the uniqueness of seeking answers. Teachers encourage students to review factual factors or elaborate language items in advance, but at the same time, they also hurt students' enthusiasm for expressing their ideas in the target language. Extract 2 is a typical foreign teacher's classroom question, which encourages students to guess or think about what the answer they want, rather than trying to find out what the correct answer is. In contrast, teachers in China ask closed questions, which hardly arouse students' desire to exchange ideas, and also limit students' language output.

3. Ways to find answers

According to the way of answering questions, there are four ways for Chinese and foreign teachers to seek answers to questions: 1) nomination; Students; 2) Students answer collectively (chorus? Answer); 3) student volunteering; 4) The teacher answers himself (the teacher himself? Answer) (Zhao Xiaohong, 1998).

As can be seen from Table 5, in the classroom of teachers in China, teachers are more likely to use the strategies of assigning students to answer and teachers themselves to answer. Junior high school students speak enthusiastically in class and have a high proportion of voluntary answers. However, this is only a superficial phenomenon. Careful observation shows that the students who take the initiative to answer the teacher's questions are all regular students with strong language ability and high language fluency. For students with weak ability and low language fluency, there are few opportunities to practice the target language. Another phenomenon is that teachers often answer questions themselves. On the one hand, it reflects that teachers don't have enough patience to wait for students, on the other hand, it also shows that teachers want to save time. They want to save time as much as possible, give students more opportunities to practice or give them a more thorough explanation. As everyone knows, this greatly reduces the meaning of asking questions, and at the same time makes students more dependent on teachers (Zhao Xiaohong, 1998). Foreign teachers often take the form of group cooperation in class, and rarely assign students to answer questions. Students get opportunities for classroom interaction mainly through group cooperation. Foreign teachers rarely answer their own questions directly. When students have difficulty in understanding or expressing, they think more about modifying the topic to reduce the difficulty, but obviously they don't think much about saving time. Therefore, foreign teachers' classes seem relaxed and relaxed. This relaxed classroom atmosphere sometimes becomes too relaxed in the foreign teachers' class of Grade Two in senior high school. Whether foreign teachers' questioning methods and classroom organization forms are suitable for students with low language proficiency deserves our attention and discussion.

4. Information provision strategy

When observing the classroom, this survey found that both teachers and foreign teachers in China usually have similar strategies for questioning forms, namely, Yes/No form, Or-choice form, Wh form, fill-in-the-blank form and English-Chinese translation form (foreign teachers occasionally ask questions about English-Chinese translation or Chinese-English translation). Although the strategies used by Chinese and foreign teachers are basically the same, this survey found that the proportion of teachers using fill-in-the-blank form in China is significantly higher than that of foreign teachers. As shown in Table 6, foreign teachers use this form, accounting for 7- 14% of the total number of problems, while domestic teachers use this form, accounting for 17-42%.

It is worth noting that because the answers induced by the fill-in-the-blank questions are shorter, students only need to fill in the missing information, so the amount of students participating in communication naturally decreases, and the motivation to use the target language is also weakened. In contrast, foreign teachers seldom use this form, and they pay more attention to the natural output of language.

5. Information modification strategy

Rod Ellis (1994) also pointed out that teachers will decorate their own language in various ways when giving lectures to second language learners, and pay great attention to the current level of learners. Revision is a common strategy in questioning, aiming at promoting students' understanding and acceptance. This modification has the following characteristics: 1) repetition; 2) provide clues; ; 3) Use selectivity; On the contrary; 4) Waiting time. Chinese and foreign teachers will use this strategy.

(1) Self-repetition

This survey compares the repetition rate of Chinese and foreign teachers' questions. Table 7 shows the self-questioning rate of Chinese and foreign teachers in the classroom.