The Relationship between Iranian EFL Teachers’ Critical Thinking and the Type and Frequency of Those Teachers’ Questions at the Intermediate Level

This study attempted to examine the relationship between teachers' critical thinking (CT) and the type and frequency of those teachers' questions. To fulfill the mission of the study, twenty Iranian EFL teachers were asked to record their voices during teaching the same reading passage. Each teacher was divided into three groups including high, mid, and low critical thinkers. These participants vary in terms of age, gender, teaching experience, and education degree. Based on the purpose of the study, audio-recordings of twenty reading and discussion classes, observations, and a questionnaire were used in the data collection process. Results of the study revealed that teachers with high level of critical thinking ability ask more and high level questions rather than the teachers with low critical thinking ability. The statistical analysis procedures utilized substantiated a rather high significant positive relationship between teachers' gender, education degree, teaching experiences, and the number of the questions they raised in the classroom. The findings revealed that the teachers with high levels of critical thinking asked more and high levels of the questions. The study shows that the success of asking good questions depends very much on how much of critical thinking ability they have. It means the teachers with high educational degree and high experience of teaching had high level of critical thinking ability asked high level of questions based on Bloom's taxonomy such as analyzing, evaluating, and creating. These kinds of questions could encourage students to think by themselves, and think more critically, in other words, to have ability of decision making and problem solving. Finally, some theoretical and pedagogical implications are put forward.