Delegating Critical Thinking Skills in Learners through Effective Questioning Technique in the Class

Abstract

The 21st century is known as the "flat world" where people can communicate from anywhere, anytime. It is imperative that educators ensure their students have the necessary skills for adapting to the modern world, such as communication, creativity, critical thinking, and collaboration. By learning English, students will not only shorten their learning gaps for new opportunities but will also increase their chances of becoming global citizens. However, since most Vietnamese students do not know how to practice or promote their critical thinking skills while learning English, it is crucial that teachers understand and apply a variety of techniques and strategies to activate and guide students' critical thinking. Brookfield and Preskill (2005) state that well-structured- questions raise students' awareness of using their knowledge and comprehension of a subject at lower-order thinking skills (remember-understand-apply) to higher-order thinking skills (analysis, synthesis, evaluation, and creation). To learn how Vietnamese teachers delegate critical thinking questions to their students and how often they do so, the researchers conducted the study using a quantitative method to figure out how teachers' questioning techniques promote students' critical thinking skills. This study uses a quantitative methodology in which the researchers developed the questionnaires based on Bloom Taxonomy's thinking orders and contributed to Vietnamese Teachers for data collection. The results showed that most Vietnamese teachers know how to use questioning techniques and frequently develop them during their teaching. They use questions to evaluate learners' conceptual understandings and provide them with feedback on their thinking processes from simple to complex concepts and provide hints or alternative explanations, which boost the development of students' critical thinking skills.