編者按

英語學習不像您所想象的那么難，但也不像您所想象的那么易。要多聽，多讀，多練習！看到今天的標題，也許您會說，我當英語教師都這么多年了，我上課天天都在提問學生，提問有什么難的？誰不會提問？事實上，課堂提問是一門藝術(shù)，是學問、智慧和經(jīng)驗融合的藝術(shù)，從教師的提問就可以看出他的專業(yè)水平，學術(shù)素養(yǎng)，以及教學能力等。“鄭新民談英語教學與研究”今天跟大家推薦一些能激發(fā)或啟迪學生思維的英語提問句。

講解者

鄭新民，香港大學哲學博士（PhD），上海外國語大學教授。

本期重點內(nèi)容

Hello, dear listeners, I am Prof. Zheng Xinmin from Shanghai International Studies University. In today's programme, we are going to talk about the importance of classroom questioning. 

As everybody knows, a question is any sentence which has an interrogative form or function. In classroom settings, English teacher questions are defined as instructional cues or stimuli that convey to students the subject matter knowledge(SMK) or content knowlege(CK) to be learned and directions for what they are to do and how they are to do it.

Research has shown that English teachers' classroom questioning has much to do with a variety of student outcomes, including level of student preparation, retention and achievement. To be more specific, the purpose of English teachers' questioning can be summarized as follows: 

• to review and summarize previous lessons

• to evaluate students' preparation and check on homework or classroom work completion
  

• to develop interest and motivate students to become actively involved in lessons

• to develop critical thinking skills and inquiring attitudes

• to nurture insights by exposing new relationships

• to assess achievement of instructional goals and objectives

• to stimulate students to pursue knowledge on their own

When asking students questions, I think English teachers should avoid asking questions randomly. They must understand how new the concept is for the students, as well as what level of understanding the students are exhibiting. In order to achieve the purposes described above, we suggest that English teachers may follow the following sentence patterns to raise questions according to the real need of the teaching context. 

First, if you want to check your students' knowledge of the content elements they have learned, you may ask:

• Can you recall…?

• Where is…? Who is…?

• Can you list three chief features…?

• How would you explain…?

Second, if you want your students to tell you how well they understand the content elements that you are teaching, you may ask:

• What is the main idea of…?

• How would you summarize…?

• How do you explain…?

• Can you find an example of…?

Then, when you want your students to demonstrate their analysis ability, you may ask:

• Why do you think…?

• Can you compare…?

• How would you categorize…?

• What can you infer by saying...?

After that, if you want your students to give their points of view and evaluate the concepts or definitions, you may ask:

• Which is more important…? Why?

• Can you defend…?

• What are the pros/cons of…?

• How would you feel if…?

Furthermore, if you want your students to apply the content elements or ideas that they have just learned, you may ask:

• What would happen if…?

• How would you clarify…?

• Who do you think…?

• What is a situation like…?

Finally, if you want to evoke your students' creativity, you may ask:

• What is an alternative…?

• Could you invent…?

• How can you imagine…?

• What could you design to…?

Well, to conclude today's programme, it is clear that changing the wording of a question can help change the level of difficulty and it is also obvious that vocabulary is the key to changing questions. Following the suggested patterns with only a few slight adjustments, I trust you can easily get a variety of different responses from your students. I hope this is useful for you to practise in your teaching setting. Well, that concludes today's programme. Thank you for listening. Bye for now.