Critical Thinking Skills and Art of Questioning Behavior of Junior High School English Teachers in the City Schools Division of Cabuyao

Abstract

INTRODUCTION

Developing critical thinking skills has attracted attention at various levels of education. In the City Schools Division of Cabuyao recognizes the importance of critical thinking skills, and incorporating the teaching of such skills has been promoted in language education. Among other skills, researchers including Bloom maintain that asking questions that are cognitivelydemanding is an effective means to enhance the critical thinking skills of learners. The main objective of this interpretative inquiry is to look into teachers' critical thinking skills and art of questioning behavior through the lens of selected junior high school English teachers in the City Schools Division of Cabuyao.

METHODS

The mixed method research design was utilized in this study. It also made use of multiple in-depth interviews, using a protocol that is a predesigned form containing the researchquestions which were general and open-ended and survey. This research was limited to the observations to the teachers of the select schools in the City Schools Division of Cabuyao.

RESULTS

The results indicated that both teachers ask higher-order questions relatively more frequently than teachers observed in other studies, though lower-order questions were more frequent. The higher frequency of the higher-order questions can be due to the teacher's awareness of critical thinking skills. Learners were not able to answer the questions immediately because of their inability to put ideas together and fear to be corrected by the teachers. In, her, teachers look for possible ways on how to make the questions easy to understand so that the learner will be able tobecome an active part of the educational process.

DISCUSSIONS

The results of this study will be useful in coming up with a proposed division-wide program which will address the needs of both teachers and students in order to achieve the purpose of the K to 12 curriculum which is to make every learner a communicator using English language.