This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Tan, Z. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

Questioning in Chinese University EL Classrooms

What Lies beyond It?

Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, The People's Republic of China; tanzhi{at}mail.gdufs.edu.cn

This paper reports the findings of a study examining classroom questioning behavior and its impacts on students' development. A triangulation was conducted to collect data: observations of nine university English lessons, semi-structured interviews with six teachers and focus group discussions with three groups of students.

The data showed that many of the questions asked were lower cognitive questions and that they were mostly answered in chorus or by teacher nomination. The findings revealed that questioning was employed by the teachers to check text comprehension, hold the students' attention on the texts, to enhance and protect teacher's and students' face, to maintain classroom discipline, to establish teacher authority, and to gain student respect and acceptance.

The results indicate that the questioning behavior identified is likely to have potential negative impact on the students. Tentative suggestions are made for improving questioning style to fit the Chinese educational reform agenda.

Key Words: acquisition • comprehension • instructional materials • research • second language learning • syllabus

RELC Journal, Vol. 38, No. 1, 87-103 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/0033688206076161


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?