Abstract:

Teacher questioning is the largest component of classroom talk, exemplified by the well-known two-thirds rule proposed by Flanders (1970) which suggests that two-thirds of the talk in classrooms tends to be produced by teachers, and two=thirds of that consists of teacher questions. Studies suggest a direct ignorance of comparative study into teachers’ questioning within the context of the UK. Given the fact that very little research was carried out in teachers’ questioning in the context of mathematic classrooms and even more than that is, there does not exist a direct comparative study for the UK and China in secondary mathematics classrooms. Therefore, this article aims to fill the gap in the literature. In this paper, I am looking for similarities and differences in both beliefs and practices of teachers’ questioning in secondary mathematic classrooms in the UK and China since teachers’ personal beliefs have a profound impact upon their classroom practices. By making a comparison between the two countries, it is hoped to examine the perceived cultural differences and similarities underpinning the use of teachers’ questioning. In this sense, I am also hoping to bring some insights into Chinese mathematics teachers’ questioning practice to enable the researchers in the west to have some understanding about mathematics teaching from those teachers’ cultural and educational backgrounds.

Through classroom observations and individual interviews with 12 Chinese teachers who are currently teaching year 7 and year 8, and other 12 teachers from the UK who are teaching at Key stage 3, I am hoping to obtain a deeper understanding on teacher questioning and to shade some insights into teachers questioning from a cross-cultural perspective.

The findings revealed that, the two groups of teachers demonstrated a distinctive difference in their beliefs and practices of questioning. For example, it is found that, teachers in the UK seemed to possess more profound pedagogical knowledge about questioning than their Chinese counterparts, but a closer examination into their classroom practices revealed a conflict between their beliefs and practices. By contrast, the Chinese teachers who were less aware of their questioning, adopted a variety of questioning strategies, particularly when a specific context was given during interviews, they were able to describe the ways they approached questioning comprehensively.

Keywords:

Secondary mathematics classroom, Questioning, Beliefs, Practices, the UK, China.