INFLUENCE OF QUESTIONING TECHNIQUES IN EFL CLASSES ON DEVELOPING STUDENTS’ CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS

Abstract

Rapid changes in global education directly affect each education aspects including skillsthat should be mastered by students and teaching strategy used. Moreover, developments ofeducation in the 21st century put stronger importance on Higher-Order Thinking Skills(HOTS) in which critical thinking skills include. In this case, the teacher's questioning as astrategy promoting HOTS to cultivate critical thinking skills will be the concern of thisresearch. The research aimed to examine the level of questions used by the teacher and itscontributions to students’ critical thinking. The research was carried out using case studydesign in Senior High School in East Java. In obtaining the data, classroom observation, fieldnotes, and interviews were employed. The results showed that the teacher used both loworder questions and high order questions. Additionally, it was also found that lower-orderthinking questions could not facilitate students to think critically, however, it only leads thestudents to understand the concept given. Hence, it was suggested to maximize the use ofhigher-order levels questions to train the students to think critically.