[Keywords:] Kindergarten; Picture book teaching; Ask a question
Questioning is an important means for teachers to organize teaching activities, which largely determines the effectiveness of teaching activities and builds a bridge between children and teachers. Sterling G kalhan, an American education expert, believes that "asking questions is the basic control means for teachers to promote students' thinking, evaluate the teaching effect and promote children to achieve the expected goals" [1]. Previous studies have shown that in specific teaching activities, there are some problems in teachers' questioning, such as unclear direction, low quality and effectiveness of questioning. Therefore, on the basis of analyzing the present situation of teachers' questioning in small-class picture book teaching in kindergartens, this study puts forward questioning strategies to improve teaching efficiency and classroom atmosphere. Teachers need to choose different questioning methods according to the content of picture books, aiming at stimulating children's interest in learning and promoting their language development.
First, research methods.
This study mainly adopts the field observation method. 2065438+From March to May, 2005, we observed the picture book teaching activities of eight small classes in a kindergarten in Suzhou, which were taught by eight teachers. The author focuses on observing and recording the ways of teachers' questions and responses and children's responses in picture book teaching, and comprehensively understands the basic situation and characteristics of teachers' questions in small class picture book teaching on the basis of in-depth analysis.
Second, the results and analysis
(A) the problem of low cognitive level.
In the field observation, the author recorded 36 1 teacher's questions, and according to Bloom's learning achievements in the field of cognition, the questions were divided into six categories, namely, memory, understanding, analysis, application, synthesis and evaluation. The above questions can be divided into three levels according to the cognitive level, namely, low level, intermediate level and advanced level. From the table 1, it can be seen that the proportion of questions with low cognitive level in small class picture book teaching is 68.4%, which shows that teachers' questions do not require high cognitive level of children, and mainly focus on children's memory and understanding of knowledge; The proportion of middle and high-level problems that need children's analytical application and comprehensive application evaluation is 20.6% and 1 1.0% respectively. The number of high-level questions is far lower than that of middle-level and low-level questions, and the structural proportion of the questions is not reasonable, which shows that although teachers try to raise middle-level and high-level questions, they do not pay enough attention to them. Although children in small classes mainly memorize and understand knowledge, the ability of analysis, application and comprehensive evaluation is also very important. Asking questions should promote the development of children's thinking ability such as analysis, judgment, reasoning and synthesis.
(B) the emphasis on pictures over words.
Picture book is an art composed of pictures and words. Teachers should pay equal attention to graphics and text and grasp the relationship between graphics and text. Judging from the content of teachers' questions, it can be divided into three ways: text type, picture type and combination of picture and text. The statistical results show that (Table 2) teachers mainly put forward questions about pictures, accounting for 6 1.5%, while questions about words and pictures and texts accounted for 23.0% and 15.5% respectively, indicating that teachers pay more attention to children's cognition of pictures and pay less attention to children's cognition of words or pictures and texts. Peng Yi, a theorist of children's literature, believes that "it is limited to tell a story only with words or pictures. Pictures are good at expressing space, but not at expressing time, taste, sound and people's psychological activities. This is not a problem for words, but it is difficult to describe the appearance of a bridge "[2]. It can be seen that it is not very scientific for teachers to ask questions only in words or pictures. Pictures and words complement each other. Relationship, picture books should be stories told with pictures and words. The guide to learning and development for children aged 3-6 points out that "small class children should be able to understand that the words in the book correspond to the pictures and are used to express the meaning of the pictures". Therefore, teachers need to use various questioning methods strategically to guide children to read illustrated picture books and enrich their pre-reading and pre-literacy experiences.
(3) Short waiting time.
There are two kinds of waiting time for teachers to ask questions. "The first kind of waiting time refers to the time when teachers ask questions for the first time and let students consider answering them; The second kind of waiting time refers to the interval between a student's answer, the teacher or other students affirming or denying the answer, and then continuing "[3]. Almost all the waiting time observed in this study is the first one. The statistical results show that (Table 3) the teacher's waiting time is very short, accounting for 75.5% of 1-3 seconds, which means that the teacher asks the child to give an answer as soon as he asks a question. The reasons are as follows: First, teachers often ask questions about memory and understanding, which are simple and clear, and children can get answers without deep thinking; Second, teachers often ask questions about picture books, "What you see is what you get", and children can answer them with a little observation; Third, teachers control the teaching scene authoritatively and are unwilling to have a "silence" in teaching activities.
(d) Single mechanical response mode
The way to respond is the teacher's feedback on the child's correctness, inaccuracy, incompleteness or failure to answer questions. Based on other researchers' classification methods [4], the author divides teachers' coping styles into two dimensions and six subcategories according to the characteristics of the research samples. The statistical results show that (Table 4), retelling answers and positive praise rank in the top two in teachers' termination answers, accounting for 54. 1% and 20.6% respectively, and "answering by yourself" accounts for the smallest proportion (6.4%). Retelling answers means that teachers help children understand the activities by retelling their answers. According to the observation at the teaching site, the author found that most teachers are habitual behaviors, usually simply repeating children's answers, and plain tone and mechanical retelling methods are not helpful for children to better understand the key points of the content. A wide range of responses include active questioning, guidance and tips, and encouraging questions. Among them, questioning accounts for the highest proportion (10.3%), which means that teachers can add new questions after children answer, so as to encourage children to think further. However, teachers often ask shallow or formal questions, which is not conducive to children's cultivation of divergent thinking and positive thinking. Generally speaking, the proportion of teachers using extended response (18.9%) is much lower than that of terminating response (8 1. 1%), which shows that teachers' response is single and mechanical, and they lack necessary teaching skills and experience.
(5) The effectiveness of the problem is not high.
Teachers should pay attention to the effectiveness of questioning strategies, so that every question can stimulate children's thinking and play an enlightening and guiding role. The author thinks that questioning can be divided into effective questioning, inefficient questioning and invalid questioning. Effective questioning refers to asking enlightening and guiding questions, which can inspire children to think and participate actively. Inefficient questioning refers to teachers asking questions that are too simple or unclear; Invalid questions refer to questions that are completely useless. The statistical results show that (Table 5), valid problems (40.3%) account for a large proportion, followed by invalid problems (36.6%) and invalid problems (23. 1%). Generally speaking, teachers can play the basic role of asking questions and use them to promote the development of teaching activities. A large number of effective questions can inspire children well. Wang Cuiping believes that "to improve the effectiveness of teachers' questions, teachers must describe the questions clearly, concisely and orderly to help children open their minds" [5]. Therefore, teachers need to further improve the effectiveness of questioning, and then improve the effect of teaching activities.
Third, suggestions and countermeasures
(1) Pay attention to children's thinking characteristics and increase the problem of high cognitive level.
In picture book teaching, teachers should choose appropriate questioning methods according to children's age characteristics, recent development fields, thinking characteristics and picture book content, and pay attention to the order of questioning. First of all, the problem of low cognitive level should maintain a certain proportion; Secondly, appropriately increase the proportion of problems with medium and high cognitive level, and organically combine problems with different cognitive levels; Thirdly, teachers can flexibly use three kinds of questions according to the performance of children in teaching activities, and pay attention to the hierarchy when asking questions, which can be from shallow to deep, from the surface to the inside; Finally, teachers should ask questions with moderate difficulty in order to help children better understand the content of picture books.
(2) Reasonably grasp the graphic relationship of picture book content, and guide children to think positively.
Picture books are the art of combining pictures and words, which complement each other. Perry Norman pointed out in the book "The Joy of Reading Children's Literature" that "picture books contain at least three kinds of stories: stories told by words, stories implied by pictures, and stories produced by the combination of the two". Therefore, teachers should reasonably grasp the relationship between pictures and words in picture books, and through effective questioning, let children encourage creative thinking by observing pictures, understanding words and combining pictures and texts; In addition, teachers need to comprehensively use a variety of questioning methods, which not only enlivens the classroom atmosphere, but also highlights the children's dominant position in the activities, and enhances the children's learning interest and mutual interaction.
(3) Pay attention to communication and scientifically grasp the waiting time and coping style.
The short waiting time and the single response of the mechanical teacher are not conducive to children's positive thinking. Therefore, teachers should learn to wait and give reasonable feedback to children's answers. When children give different answers to the same question, teachers need to summarize and summarize the contents to help children understand; When the child can't answer or the answer is incomplete, the teacher can't interrupt impatiently, but should be good at guiding the child to say the correct answer with words or actions, so that the child can experience the joy of success; When a child answers wrong, the teacher should not completely deny or even criticize it. They should not only guide their peers to help, but also encourage their children in time. In addition, teachers can ask questions in real time, such as "Why" and "Is there any other way", to encourage children to think deeply and expand their learning experience, thus improving the effectiveness of coping.
[References]
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[2] Peng Yi. How to read picture books [J]. Chinese Teaching Newsletter, 2008, (36).
[3][ America] Baritz. Effective teaching methods [M]. Yi Dongping, translated. Nanjing: Jiangsu Education Press, 2004: 226.
[4] Wang Tian. A Study on Teachers' Questioning in Collective Teaching Activities in Bilingual Kindergartens [D]. Urumqi: Xinjiang Normal University, 20 14.
[5] Wang Cuiping. Analysis on effective questioning strategies of picture book reading teachers [J]. Education Guide (second half), 20 14, (2).