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Chapter One Introduction

1.1 Background of the Study
The roles of a teacher in the classroom are mainly realized through teachers’talk,and teachers’ questioning is a vital aspect of teachers’ talk. As a fundamental form ofteaching, questioning is one of the widely applied teaching skills in teaching process.According to the American psychologist Stevens (1912) who does a pioneeringresearch on classroom questioning, classroom teaching is the pattern of teachers’questioning and students’responses, and about 80% of the class teaching time is takenup by teachers’ questions and students’ responses. His study shows that teachers’questioning plays a central role in classroom interaction. Postman (1979:140) believedthat all the knowledge of human is derived from questions. Teachers should usequestioning effectively and create a good environment. Besides, a study (Tsui, 1985) ofEnglish classes in Hong Kong also shows that 70% of class talk consists of teachers’questioning, students’ responses and teachers’ feedback. Peacock (1990:128) says:“Teachers ask questions to find out what students know or do not know as well asperhaps to challenge, stimulate and develop their thinking ability. Numan (1991) pointsout that teachers’question is critical for both language teaching and learning. Richardsand Platt (2002:379) points out that “The questioning is one of the most frequentlyusedteaching strategies”. According to the survey made by Wang Duqin, Ying Jing, TuZhenhe (2002), 20% to 40% in the activities of English classroom interaction arearoused by teachers’questioning.
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1.2 Significance and Purpose of the Study
It is very necessary to study the teachers’questioning, which is helpful for peopleto have a better understanding of how to make effective questioning and improveEnglish teaching.Theoretically, this study will enrich the theories on teachers’ questioning, whichplays a key role in the classroom interaction and language teaching. Effectivequestioning can focus students’ attention, stimulate students to think, and assessstudents’ learning. Therefore, based on the previous studies abroad and at home, thisstudy will analyze the characteristics of foreign teachers’ questioning in oral Englishclass including types of questions, questioning strategies, teachers’ feedback, waitingtime, and distribution of questions, trying to supply additional theoretical knowledgefor English teaching.Practically, through observing and analyzing the characteristics of the foreign teachers’ questioning, this study tries to give some practical suggestions on Englishteaching in oral English class from the perspective of classroom interaction on the basisof previous researches.The first purpose of this study is to explore the characteristics of foreign teachers’questioning in oral English class. The second purpose is to reveal the relationshipbetween teachers’questioning and classroom interaction.To be more specific, the studywill explore the characteristics of foreign teachers’ questioning in oral Englishclassroom from the following aspects: 1) Types of questions. 2) Teachers’ questioningstrategies. 3) Waiting time 4) Teachers’feedback. 5) Distribution of questions.
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Chapter Two Literature Review

Teachers’ questioning as a key element in teachers’ talk has a big influence onlanguage teaching and learning. From different perspectives, a lot of studies aboutteachers’que