1.1.2 Enhance classroom interaction 

Classroom atmosphere is the production of teacher-student interaction and student-student interaction. Teachers should strive as much as possible to create real-world scene and design questions that can make students “move”. Students’ self-learning and interaction is the focal point of English course and the New Curriculum Reform. By using valid questions, teachers can firstly involve students in the classroom discourse, encourage and challenge them to think. Secondly, teachers can increase the amounts of conversations with students. Make them talk, make them feel the art of language by themselves. Thirdly, the class will not be tranquil anymore. An alive English class can better arouse students’ motivation and interest of learning. This is also another function: motivational.

1.2 Problems of Teachers’ Question

Classroom teaching is an art, which includes teaching content, teaching methods, teaching language, teaching emotion, blackboard writing, teachers’ question and homework posting. Among them, teachers’ question is the universal way of teacher-student interaction, which helps teachers grasp the learning conditions of students and better control classroom teaching. Thus, brilliant and valid questioning can improve the teaching quality. Nevertheless, many teachers, in actual teaching, are always giving questions that are haphazardness. In this case, classroom teaching will get into scrapes if teachers give questions without skills and principles. Following are some main problems of teachers’ question nowadays.

1.2.1 Out-of-order and non-progressive questioning

Out-of-order questioning, means that teachers give a question casually, which will distract students’ attention on key knowledge and difficulties. For example, some teachers will pose a question that has nothing related to what they are teaching; some teachers will ask for asking; some teachers like making a swoop at students. Such out-of-order questions would easily make students being passive learning, inhibit their thinking, which finally result in the phenomenon of “questioning without responding”. Hence, teachers should crystallize the key point of question before the class, together with the objects, orders.

Non-progressive questioning, means questions that always stay at a same level. But instead, teachers’ question should proceed from the easy to the difficult, from the elementary to the profound, and from the concrete to the abstract. Moreover, questioning should be in accordance with students’ cognitive rules and follow the premise of teaching students according to their aptitude.

1.2.2 Superficial and insipid questioning

Students, who often start to think from a question, will never stop because of a doubt or be satisfied with having only a sketchy knowledge. The question that well-designed by teachers is to inspire students’ thinking and to make them desire for acquiring new knowledge. Howbeit, many teachers unluckily, always give questions that are unitary, lacking of suspense. Thus they can’t get students involved. To avoid a toneless class, teachers should make full use of media facilities like PPT, pictures, videos and music to set up suspense and pose questions. After students’ imagination and creation are inspired, teachers then could explain the questions, which will assist their teaching.

Another factor of giving superficial and insipid questions is that answers can be easily found in the textbook, which is called dominant questions. Whereas, recessive questions are the ones that we need, for it can better bring up students’ ability of analyzing and solving problems.

1.2.3 Excessive use of questions that students are already known

Many teachers prefer using questions that are easy to answer. These questions always have clear answers and most answers are similar. Other questions like opening or pergent questions, contrarily require students to give free rein to their imagination, to creatively answer them. Long & Sarto (1983) named these two questions display questions and referential questions.