Abstract The present study adopts a quantitative design to explore the effects of pre-designed teachers’ questions as the mediation tool to scaffold the development of students’ critical thinking and their discourse level writing skills in English from a sociocultural perspective. The participants were 39 sophomores from two classes. The results showed that: (1) teachers’ questions targeting specific critical thinking skill in the classroom and in after-class conferences, as well as in written homework feedback were effective; (2) students backslid a little while internalizing teachers’ questions concerning critical thinking; (3) students improved reliably in terms of local and global coherence in their written production with the help of teachers’ questions. The findings indicate that teachers’ questions facilitate students’ development of critical thinking and enhance their discourse level writing skill.

中文翻译：

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通过教师的问题发展学生的批判性思维和话语水平的写作技巧：一种社会文化方法

摘要本研究采用定量设计方法，探讨了预先设计的教师提问作为中介工具的中介作用，以从社会文化的角度来支持学生的批判性思维及其英语话语水平写作技巧的发展。参与者是来自两个班级的39个大二学生。结果表明：（1）针对课堂，课后会议以及书面作业反馈中针对特定批判性思维技能的教师提问是有效的；（2）学生在将教师有关批判性思维的问题内化的同时略微退缩；（3）在教师提问的帮助下，学生在书面作品中的本地和全球连贯性方面得到了可靠的提高。