





































Putri Anggraeni, et al / Journal of English Language Teaching 6 (1) (2017) 

136 

 

 
ELT FORUM 10 (2) (2021) 

 

Journal of English Language Teaching 

 
http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt 

 
 

Teachers’ questioning strategies and students’ perceptions toward critical 

questions in EFL classroom interaction 

 

Modi Nur Kholisoh, Dwi Anggani Linggar Bharati 
 

English Department, Universitas Negeri Semarang, Indonesia 

 

Article Info 
________________  
Article History: 

Received in 17 

December 2020 

Approved in 28 March 

2021 

Published in 28 July 

2021 

________________  
Keywords: Teachers’ 
questioning strategies; 
critical questions; students’ 
perceptions; classroom 
interaction  
____________________ 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Abstract 
_____________________________________________________________ 
This study aims to find out teachers’ questioning strategies and students’ perceptions 
of critical questions in EFL classroom interaction. This research was conducted 

during the COVID-19 pandemic, in which the classroom interaction was online. We 
used a case study design that focused on the descriptive analysis. This study was 

conducted at one of Senior High Schools in Semarang. The participants in this study 
are two English teachers and two classes. The data were gained by using classroom 

observation, interview, questionnaire, and documentation. We used Chen’s (2016) 

theory and Anderson & Krathwohl (2001) to categorize and analyze the data 
findings to know teachers’ questioning strategies and students’ perceptions toward 

critical questions in EFL classroom interaction. The result of the analysis showed 
that the teachers used all of the teachers' questioning strategies and they posed 

critical questions. Teachers questioning strategies used by the teachers when posing 
critical questions were wait-time, repetition, paraphrasing, simplifying, and probing. 

The obvious strategy to elicit students’ responses toward critical questions was 

probing. In line with this, the teachers also combined the teachers questioning 
strategies with the skill of basic questioning to elicit students’ critical answers. The 

students didn’t perceive critical question as a threat, although it was difficult to 
answer. However, they perceived critical question as a challenge for them. It can be 

concluded that the students perceived critical question as a motivational question.  
 

 
 
  
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E-mail: modinur29@gmail.com 

  

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Modi Nur Kholisoh, Dwi Anggani Linggar Bharati/ ELT Forum 10 (2) (2021) 

137 

 

INTRODUCTION 

One of the general teaching techniques of giving questions that are commonly applied in English 

language teaching is questioning. It is a cardinal thing for a teacher to find out the chasm between 

what the students have known and the development of their understanding, so the objective of the 

lesson will be achieved (Hall, 2006). It also involves assessment part as the on-going assessment 

which has several goals; they are to assess whether the students understand the material that has 

been taught, to engage students’ participation, and to stimulate students’ creative thinking in the 

learning process (Ennis, 1996, as cited in Ndun, 2015). It can be stated that the teacher enacts an 

important role in achieving the learning objectives in the classroom (Hanifah & Bharati, 2019).  

Questioning, as a part of classroom interaction, is seen as an initiative from the teachers to 

build a conducive atmosphere in order to activate students’ interest during the teaching and learning 

process. It could be a stimulus to encourage and engage the students to actively engage in classroom 

interaction (Vebriyanto, 2015). In line with this, Yulia & Budiharti (2019) stated that classroom 

interaction is seen in how teachers allow students to talk to each other with their friends and their 

teacher, ask or share the information they collect during the lesson. Thus, a teacher has to master 

teachers’ questioning strategies, so he could achieve the objectives of the questioning process. By the 

existence of the teacher’s questioning strategy, it can promote students’ curiosity about the content, 

supply the atmosphere to the students to get new information and provide an opportunity to show 

their feeling and ideas related to the content (Turney et al., 1983).  

Dealing with those theories about questioning, the researcher tried to connect the related 

theories with the factual phenomena that occur in one of the Senior High Schools in Semarang. In 

my observation view, the teachers have tried to build classroom interaction by questioning. While 

the teachers were doing the questioning, the students were quite enthusiastic to answer teachers’ 

questions. The teachers applied two kinds of questions: lower-cognitive questions and higher-

cognitive questions. They have developed a half portion of students’ critical thinking ability toward 

critical questions. During the questioning section, the teachers posed several critical questions. Most 

of the students looked enthusiastic enough when the teachers delivered some questions related to the 

material being discussed. They tried to answer teachers’ questions whether their answer was correct 

or no. Moreover, some students were quite active in posing questions when they didn’t understand 

the material that had been discussed. Otherwise, the rest of them just tended to follow teachers’ 

instructions without trying to pose or to answer the questions. They tended to be passive during the 

questioning section; even the questions were easy to answer.  

A large amount of research was conducted to find out the types of questions used during the 

questioning section. Shomoossi (2004), in his qualitative study, showed that display questions were 

dominated in the classroom interaction rather than referential questions. A research aimed to know 

any kind of teacher’s questioning strategies applied by the teachers and to find out how it impacts 

the students’ critical thinking and students’ engagement during the questioning section. Rashid & 

Qaisar (2016) found that the questioning strategy had been successfully produced to promote 

students’ critical thinking among elementary students in Pakistan. Higher-cognitive questions were 

successfully applied in the learning process through the questioning process. Sano (2014) revealed 

that questioning was well applied when the teachers asked higher-order questions more relatively 

frequent than the teacher in other studies. The last category explains how teachers and students 

perceive questioning strategies, student-teacher interaction during the questioning, and how critical 

thinking is perceived by both teachers and students. Ragawanti (2009) showed the findings that 

random nomination was more preferred than pre-arranged format nomination. Moreover, students 

dislike the techniques of nominating volunteering students and of giving wait time. The previous 

studies mostly focused on the types of question and teacher’s questioning strategies applied by the 

teacher during the teaching and learning activity as the above researchers did. The difference 

between those research focuses with my focus of the study is I do not only focus on teachers’ 

questioning strategies applied by the teacher but also I combine two focus of the study, they are 

teachers’ questioning strategies and students’ perceptions toward critical questions in EFL classroom 

interaction.  

Question is easy to trigger thinking, ignite inquiry, and establish a dialogic relationship and it 

is viewed as the way to create interaction among teachers and students, assess the students to 

achieve the objective of the lesson (Ma, 2008). Teaching and learning cannot be separated from the 

questions since it is a bridge of communication that connects students’ and teachers’ interaction. It 

also helps a teacher to direct a meaningful discussion, compile students’ ideas, do an on-going 



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assessment, and encourage the students to be more productive in thinking (Chin, 2007). Thus, to 

build communication in the classroom discussion, a teacher is supposed to ask the right question. As 

stated by Ziyaeemehr (2016), asking the right question is the heart of effective communication and 

interaction during the learning process. By doing so in a particular situation can increase a whole 

range of communication skills. For example, we can gather better information and learn more; we 

can build a stronger relationship, organize people more effectively, and help others to learn too. 

Through consistent dialogue and communication during the learning process, the teachers can get 

the answer they want and evaluate students’ answers at the same time.  

“Skill in the art of questioning lies at the basis of all good teaching” (Betts, 1910, p. 55). The 

teacher requires mastering the basics of questioning during the teaching and learning process. 

Hence, the teachers have to know the type of questions. The question itself is classified by the level 

of cognitive demand to answer it. The cognitive level of questions refers Bloom’s Taxonomy in 

which there are six levels of the cognitive level that come from the lowest to the highest. There are 

three types of question, they are cognitive, affective, and psychomotor. The cognitive domain 

includes in Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy, as stated by Anderson & Krathwohl (2001) is remember, 

understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, and create.  

The existence of question in the learning is mostly about assessing students’ understanding, 

whereas it serves different functions. According to Kanchak & Eggen (1989, as cited in Ma, 2008), 

the functions of questions are divided into three categories: diagnostic, instructional, and 

motivational, but a question can have more than one function. Questioning is regarded as a 

beneficial and relevant medium to create classroom discussions in the classroom. As Maiza et al. 

(2015) stated, in order to build a good classroom discussion, teachers should have the initiative to 

activate students’ interest. One of the best ways to form classroom discussion is questioning. Dillon 

(1983) prompted that questioning is one way to enhance student participation and involvement in 

thinking and learning. Ocbian & Pura (2015) even argue that there will be no useful discussion 

during the class if the questioning is not applied. It can be stated that purposeful questioning means 

that the teacher encourages the students to participate in the classroom discussion by responding to 

questions and asking questions by themselves so they might increase their levels of understanding 

(Barnes et al. 1976, in Turney et al., 1983).  

The implementation of questioning cannot be separated from the existence of teacher 

questioning strategies. There must be strategies to elicit students’ responses during the questioning 

section. The strategies rely on sophisticated utterances that are influenced to produce critical 

responses made by the students. According to Chen (2016), some strategies could be implemented to 

get students' responses related to higher-order questions. Those strategies are wait time, repetition, 

paraphrasing, simplifying, and the last strategy is probing. Probing is a strategy that provides the 

teacher to scaffold students’ thinking in order to facilitate the elicitation of students’ responses.  

 

METHODS 

This research was a qualitative study that focused on descriptive analysis. It belongs to a case study 

that investigated teachers’ questioning strategies and students’ perceptions toward critical questions 

in EFL classroom interaction. We used the case of English teaching as the case of the study in which 

it was a classroom-based research project as we involved teachers and students in the classroom. In 

the discussion of the qualitative approach, there are several types of study. One of them is the study 

of document analysis. The document analysis is a study which focused on the analysis and 

interpretation of written, recording, and notes (Sa’adah, 2018). One of the types of study in 

document analysis is discourse analysis. Classroom discourse analysis was used in this study as this 

study was conducted in the classroom and used teachers’ and students’ talk as the data findings.  

In this study, we chose two English teachers of Senior High School in Semarang. There were 

students of two classes from different grades; those are tenth and eleventh-grade students in the 

academic year 2019/2020 as the participants. The objects of the study are teachers’ questioning 

strategies and students’ perceptions toward critical questions in EFL classroom interaction. Here, we 

observed how the teachers used the questioning strategies during teaching and how the students 

perceived to the teachers’ questioning strategies toward critical questions in the EFL classroom 

interaction. The question used by the teachers is based on the levels of the question of the revised 

Bloom’s Taxonomy. They are remember, understand, apply, analyze, and create.  

 

 



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Data collection procedures 

To collect the data, we used some instruments. They were classroom observation, interview, 

questionnaire, and documentation. Classroom observation was done twice for two classes. It was 

done to know what the teacher and students did include what they said and what they did during the 

online learning activity. The next instrument we used was an interview. The aim of conducting an 

interview was to get the data about the implementation of teachers’ questioning toward teachers’ 

questioning strategies and strengths and weaknesses of implementing teachers’ questioning toward 

critical questions in EFL classroom interaction. A questionnaire was a collection of data to get 

written data related to students’ perceptions about what they perceived toward teachers’ questioning 

strategies and their opinion about critical questions applied during the questioning section and 

strengths and weaknesses of questioning strategies toward critical questions in EFL classroom 

interaction. The last instrument was documentation. Video-recording was chosen to record the 

teaching and learning activity in the classroom.  

 

Data analysis 

We used transcribing, classifying, and interpreting the data to analyze the data findings. 

Transcribing means transcribed what the teachers and students said in the classroom activities, and 

also non-verbal information was noted. To classify the process, the teachers’ talk, and students’ talk 

that had been transcribed, they were classified based on the teacher questioning strategies of Chen’s 

(2016) theory and level of questions based on Anderson & Krathwohl’s (2001) theory. The last 

process of analyzing is interpreting. The process of interpreting aimed to interpret the teachers’ talk 

and students’ talk. After the data findings had been classified, they were interpreted to explain the 

teachers’ questioning strategies, what the students perceived teachers’ questioning strategies and 

critical questions in EFL classroom interaction, and the strengths and weaknesses of implementing 

teachers’ questioning strategies toward critical questions in EFL classroom interaction.  

 

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 

Based on the classroom observation, there were many teacher questioning strategies used by the 

teachers in each class. We classified teachers’ questioning strategies into sub-main parts; those are 

teacher questioning strategies based on Chen (2016) and level of questions used by the teachers 

based on the theory of Anderson & Krathwohl (2001) during the questioning section. According to 

Chen (2016), there are teacher questioning strategies; those are wait-time, repetition, paraphrasing, 

simplifying, and probing. Here, we explained how teacher questioning strategies worked during the 

teaching and learning process, and then we classified them into the table. Furthermore, we also 

identified the level of teacher questions by using the revised Bloom’s Taxonomy (see Anderson & 

Krathwohl, 2001), which includes remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, and create. We 

categorized this section into two explanations based on the classroom observation occurred in tenth 

and eleventh class to know how teacher implement teacher questioning strategies toward critical 

questions.  

 

Teachers’ questioning strategies 

As stated earlier, we classified teachers’ questioning strategies based on Chen’s (2016) theory, which 

includes wait-time, repetition, paraphrasing, simplifying, and probing. Here, we classified the 

findings into the table, as shown below.  

 

Table 1. Frequency of Teacher Questioning Strategies during the Teaching and Learning Process 

 
Kinds of Teacher 

Questioning Strategies 
Total of Strategies 

Eleventh Class Tenth Class 

Wait-time 10 11 

Repetition 20 12 

Paraphrasing 6 17 

Simplifying 3 11 

Probing 10 11 

Total 58 62 



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Here, I also analyze what level of questions used during the teaching and learning process. The 

analysis is based on Anderson & Krathwohl (2001). The description of levels of question described as 

follow.  

Table 2. Frequency of Teacher Questions Occurrence at Eleventh Class 

  
Cognitive Level Levels of Questions Frequency of 

Occurrence 

Total of Questions Percentage 

Low Cognitive 

Level 

Remember Remember 
19 39,58% 

Understand Understand 

High Cognitive 
Level 

Apply Apply 

29 60,42% 
Analyze Analyze 

Evaluate Evaluate 

Create Create 

Total questions posed by the teacher in Eleventh Class 48 

 

 

Table 3. Frequency of Teacher Questions Occurrence at Tenth Class 

 
Cognitive Level Levels of Questions Frequency of 

Occurrence 
Total of Questions Percentage 

Low Cognitive 
Level 

Remember 22 
34 57,62% 

Understand 12 

High Cognitive 

Level 

Apply 6 

25 42,38% 
Analyze 6 

Evaluate 11 

Create 2 

Total questions posed by the teacher in Tenth Class 59 

 

From the result above, it can be seen that teacher A posed a high cognitive level more than 

a low cognitive level. Teacher A mostly posed questions in a create level of the question as it was 

related to the material being discussed, conditional sentence, and passive voice. In this case, she got 

the students to create a sentence that was still connected to the words previously. For another high 

cognitive level such as apply, the students had to identify the grammatical implications found in a 

conditional sentence and passive voice sentence. In the level of analysis question, teacher A got the 

students to analyze the existence of grammatical implications in a conditional sentence and passive 

voice sentence. Meanwhile, for the evaluative level question, the students had to evaluate which 

sentence was appropriate with the implementation of the conditional sentence in the form of 

multiple choice. It can be said that teacher A had applied critical questions in terms of analysis and 

evaluative questions since these questions required the students to think critically about the answer.  

According to the findings above, it can be stated that teacher B gave less high cognitive level 

questions than low cognitive level questions. At the beginning of the questioning, teacher B posed 

many low cognitive questions to recall what they learned about the narrative text. Unfortunately, the 

students were not responsive to the teacher questions, so low cognitive questions were to engage 

students to participate in questioning in the EFL classroom interaction. It was an extra effort of 

teacher B to build tenth-grade students’ engagement in the online class. However, in the middle of 

the questioning section, the students began to pay attention more to the reacher’s question as teacher 

B posed critical questions that belonged to high cognitive level questions, thus it made them think 

hard about the answer to those questions. In the form of application questions, teacher B posed 

questions that made the students identify the moral value of some narrative text. In analysis 

questions, students had to analyse why the problem arose in the narrative text. The students had to 

think critically when teacher B asked evaluative questions that required the students to evaluate if it 

was better for the narrative text to do not have a complication and to justify whether good or not a 

resolution in the narrative text. Another higher-level question existed to the creativity question as it 

required the students to imagine a character in the narrative text and expect what she would do. 

Therefore, it can be concluded that teacher B had applied critical questions in terms of analysis and 

evaluative questions. In this case, it’s required for the students to think critically according to what 

they know combined with their perceptions.  



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The use of higher-level questions such as analysis and evaluative questions had a big effect 

on the implementation of questioning strategies toward critical questions. In the implementation of 

critical questions, an analysis question is applied to determine how each part is related to each other 

and the overall structure (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001). The use of evaluative level in evaluative 

questions is to make a judgment based on the criteria and standards (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001). 

Here, students’ perspectives also impacted the answer to the evaluative question.  

 

The implementation of teachers’ questioning strategies 

I analyzed how teacher A and teacher B implemented teacher questioning strategies toward critical 

questions. On that day, teacher A posed several high-level questions that belong to high cognitive 

levels questions such as apply, analyze, evaluate, and create, but critical questions just focused on 

analysis and evaluative questions. The teacher questioning strategies used are based on the theory of 

Chen (2016); they are wait-time, repetition, paraphrasing, simplifying, and probing. The analysis of 

teacher questioning strategies is explained as follows.  

 

Teacher A 

Extract 4 
T: Kenapa harus is being put segala? 

S12: Karena verb-nya pake bentuk –ing. 

T: Iya, karena verb-nya pake bentuk –ing. Verb-nya diubah jadi past participle (Verb 3) lalu pake 

bantuan being karena kata sebelumnya pake verb-ing. Jadi is being put.  

 

The use of high-level questions such as analysis and evaluative questions gave a big effect on 

the implementation of questioning strategies toward critical questions. Students required to answer 

those questions as seen in the utterances “Kenapa harus is being put segala?” and “Kenapa milih 

yang will reduce? What is the reason?” Those questions got the students to think critically about the 

appropriate reason for the application of a passive voice and a conditional sentence. Kenapa, or why 

in this case, belongs to why questions that demanded the students to explain the reason for particular 

events or phenomena happens (Cole, 1994). Here, the students were demanded to explain the reason 

for applying “is being put” and “milih will reduce.” Their higher-order thinking skill is needed to be 

able to answer critical questions.  

 

Teacher B 
T: Do you think it is the best way to do it? 

Ss: Hmm… (Murmuring) 

T: Resolution yang bagus atau tidak bagus? 

Ss: Hmm… (Murmuring)  

T: Resolution yang bagus atau tidak bagus? 

Ss: Hmm… (Murmuring) 

T: What do you think? Ran away from the house. 

S15: It’s not good. 

S16: It’s not good because she ran away.  

 

The examples of the critical question when teacher B asked, “Do you think it is the best way 

to do it” and “Resolution yang bagus atau tidak bagus?” When teacher B asked those questions, 

actually she had implemented the questioning strategy “Probing” as it engaged in eliciting the 

students’ response regarding the critical question (Chen, 2016). These questions made the students 

think about the moral value of Malin Kundang story and evaluate whether the resolution of the 

story entitled “Snow White” belonged to a good resolution. They belong to critical questions in the 

level of analyze and evaluate which include in the high level of question. In the implementation of 

critical questions, an analysis question was applied to determine a point of view of the story entitled 

“Malin Kundang.” The use of evaluative questions was to make a judgment based on the criteria 

and standards (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001). This evaluative question gets the students in critique, 

whether ran away from home is a good resolution or no. Here, students’ perspectives also impacted 

the answer to the evaluative question.  

 

 



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Students’ perceptions of critical questions 

A critical question is a question that required higher-order thinking skills to answer as it digs in-

depth about their understanding and their belief about the material they learned previously. It’s 

interesting to know how students perceived critical questions and their impact on their learning. I 

analyzed how students perceived critical questions and how it impacted their learning achievement.  

Almost most students of Eleventh Class were competitive, so they agreed that critical 

questions should be frequently given to improve their higher-order thinking skills (75%). Meanwhile, 

some of them tend to partly agree and disagree if the teacher is frequently given critical questions 

(22.22% & 2.78%). The reason was that not all students could answer the critical question as to the 

difference in students’ level of thinking. The students still had difficulty responding to the critical 

questions. Sometimes, what they expected was not match with the teacher’s expectation about the 

answer. Moreover, teacher A didn’t explain the material in detail, so it was quite hard for the 

students to think deeper about the answer to critical questions. Teacher A frequently poses the 

critical question that did not exist in the textbook; therefore, it was also the reason for the students’ 

difficulty to answer the critical question (63.89%). The difficulty in interpreting the meaning of the 

critical questions was also the reason for being reluctant to answer a critical question. The prominent 

obstacle was the lack of students’ English vocabulary and the lack of students’ comprehension of the 

teacher’s pronunciation.  

Despite the difficulty in answering the critical question, most of the students of Eleventh Class 

perceived the critical question as a challenge for them (83.33%). It challenged them to think deeper 

about the material they learned previously. Therefore, their enthusiasm to answer the critical 

question enhanced when teacher A posed the critical question (77.78%). They competed to answer 

the critical question as teacher A gave them reinforcement in the form of additional points. It was 

useful to increase their mark when they had a bad mark on the exam. This competition made other 

students motivated to actively respond to the critical question. Even the students had difficulty 

answering critical questions using full English; they tried to answer partly in English and Bahasa 

Indonesia. Those students tend to use Bahasa Indonesia as they were afraid there was a 

miscommunication of what they answered and the teacher’s expectation. Moreover, the answer did 

not exist in the textbook, so it was also the reason for the students’ difficulty to answer the critical 

questions (63.89%). The difficulty to interpret the meaning of the critical questions was also the 

reason to be reluctant to answer a critical question. However, they argued when they succeed in 

answering the critical question; they felt proud and clever as a critical question belongs to a higher-

level of question that required more effort to answer it (83.33%).  

Students of Tenth Class were less competitive than eleventh class in terms of answering 

teacher’s questions. Therefore, some students argued teacher B should not ask critical questions 

frequently as it impacted their learning enthusiasm. On the contrary, they perceived a critical 

question as a challenge for them (58.33%). They tend to be enthusiastic to answer the critical 

question when they comprehended the material well. It can be seen from the result of the 

questionnaire that their enthusiasm to answer the critical question reached (38.89%). They had a 

lack of enthusiasm to answer the critical question, so they tend to be reluctant to answer critical 

questions as they had several difficulties. Some students pointed out that critical question was 

something hard for them to answer besides of other lower-level question. They had difficulty 

comprehending what teacher B meant as the lack of students’ understanding of the material and the 

vagueness of the teacher’s pronunciation when posed the critical question. Since teacher B was not 

clear enough to pose a critical question using English, the students feel difficult to interpret the 

meaning of the critical question itself. According to the classroom observation, not all students had a 

willingness to answer the critical question; only some of them were confident and comprehended the 

material being discussed. Hence, it can be said that students’ confidence also impacted the 

willingness to answer a critical question. They were not confident enough to answer the critical 

question as to the lack of English proficiency because of vocabulary and grammar (44.44%). The 

students can’t find the critical question answer in the textbook, so it could be the reason for students’ 

difficulty to answer critical questions (47.22%). Moreover, they had some problem answering critical 

questions as it belonged to the higher-order thinking skill to answer and it needed much 

comprehension to do so (66.67%).  

Here, I highlighted a critical question as a challenge for the students. It means that critical 

question has positive impacts to their learning achievement those are guiding them to think 

critically; encouraging them to comprehend the material in-depth; making the conducive 



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atmosphere in the EFL classroom interaction, and increasing their speaking ability. It can be stated 

that a critical question is perceived as a motivational question means that the question can be used 

effectively to involve the students in the classroom discourse that encourage and challenge them to 

think creatively (Kanchak & Eggen, 1989, as cited in Ma, 2008). In other words, a critical question is 

not perceived as a threat to them, but it challenges them to comprehend new information related to 

the material being discussed. It can be concluded that the function of this question has been used 

effectively to involve the students in the classroom discourse. It also encourages and challenges them 

to think critically about the material out of the textbook.  

 

Strengths and weaknesses of implementing questioning strategies toward critical questions in efl 

classroom interaction 

Some considerations to state the strengths and weaknesses come from the implementation of 

teacher’s questioning strategies conducted toward critical questions in EFL classroom interaction 

and the result of interpretation for other participants; those are students and me as a researcher. I 

combined the result of classroom observation and interview section to analyze the topic. According 

to the result of students’ perceptions of the questioning section, they perceived a questioning section 

as the impact of a positive thing on the learning process. Most of the students gave positive things of 

the questioning section; they are one of the effective teaching strategies to create discussion in EFL 

classroom; improve students’ English skill; enhance students’ self-confidence to speak English; make 

the class conducive; assess students’ comprehension about the material discussed; get oral responses 

about the material discussed; engage students’ interest to the detailed concept; give an opportunity to 

the students to express their ideas about the material being discussed; encourage the students to 

participate more active during learning English, and help the students to get new knowledge out of 

the box.  

From the result above, it can be concluded that the teachers were successfully used 

questioning as they could achieve the following objectives: to sharpen students’ interest and 

attention to the detailed concept; to give the students chances to increase their ability; to make sure 

the students participate in the discussion forum, and to stimulate the students to be more active to 

ask questions; and to examine particular students’ difficulties through questions that indicate where 

students need additional assistance (Turney et al., 1983). Hence, both teacher A and teacher B had 

successfully achieved the objectives of the questioning section toward critical questions in the EFL 

classroom interaction.  

Both teachers have the point of implementing a questioning strategy toward critical questions 

is the use of questioning skill “Eliciting level of thought.” It means that there are variations of 

questions during the questioning section. In other words, the teachers didn’t bombard the students 

with critical questions, but teacher A and teacher B periodically change the level of question based 

on the need for the material being discussed. Stalling & Kaskowitz (1974) in Turney et al. (1983) 

stated that the use of multiple levels of teacher questioning should involve both low and higher-order 

questions as it has a more beneficial effect on students' achievement that only focus on the frequency 

of higher-order questions alone.  

From the statement above, it can be stated that the strengths of implementing teachers’ 

questioning strategies toward critical questions in EFL classroom interaction are influenced by the 

good implementation of many factors such as effective questioning, good teacher questioning skill, 

and interactive interaction. Meanwhile, the weaknesses of implementing teachers’ questioning 

strategies toward critical questions are some students sometimes still weren’t used to critical 

questions that required them to use their higher-order thinking skill, so it diminishes their 

enthusiasm to answer critical questions during the questioning section. Moreover, the lack of 

English proficiency made them reluctant to answer critical questions. It could be another duty to 

conduct an activity that could enhance students’ English proficiency in EFL classroom interaction; 

so, they are able to speak up during the questioning section.   

The research was conducted in the pandemic era and classroom interaction was limited in the 

Zoom online meeting application. Therefore, it impacts the students’ engagement during the 

questioning section since the meeting was online. Some students didn’t get engaged in the online 

meeting as there was no face to face meeting in the real class. Meanwhile, other students felt 

enthusiastic in classroom interaction. Even the teachers acted the role properly; however, not every 

student paid attention to the process of online questioning. Any problems such as bad signals and 

bad communication tool might be the reasons they tended not to be engaged during the online 



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classroom interaction in Zoom, hence it can be said that it was less interactive. The reasons for the 

less classroom interaction are the lack of emotional bonding among the students and the teacher and 

the existence of online classroom interaction. During the online classroom interaction, the 

interaction among students and teachers only occurred on the screen. It is really different from the 

real class. It also seems that they have never met the teacher offline or face to face, so the students 

have a lack of emotional bonding among the students themselves as well as the teachers. Those 

reasons might affect the lack of classroom interaction during the teaching and learning process. 

 

 

CONCLUSION  

In this part, I give the conclusions of the whole study that had been gained from the analysis results. 

Teachers’ questioning strategies impacted the students’ achievement to answer critical questions. It 

was found that the skill of questioning also influences the teachers to implement teachers 

questioning strategies toward critical questions. They can be combined to get students’ critical 

responses regarding critical questions posed by the teachers. It can be seen from the findings that the 

teachers applied critical questions even though the students were still short.  

Both teachers used all of the teachers’ questioning strategies such as wait-time, repetition, 

paraphrasing, simplifying, and probing. Teacher A and teacher B applied low-cognitive questions 

that consisted of knowledge and comprehension questions. Both of them also applied high-cognitive 

questions that belonged to critical questions such as analyze and evaluate. The teacher questioning 

strategies are influenced by the implementation of teacher questioning strategies “Probing” toward 

critical questions.  

There are two main perceptions of critical questions that impacted students’ learning. The 

students perceived a critical question as a challenge for them. It challenged them to think critically 

about the material being learned. Second, a critical question is perceived as a difficult question to be 

answered. However, they didn’t perceive a critical question as a ‘threat’ for them. It can be 

concluded that the strengths of implementing teachers’ questioning strategies toward critical 

questions are to help the students to achieve the learning objectives regarded to the higher-order 

thinking skills; to make the students have a better understanding of the material being discussed; to 

help the students understand deeply about the material delivered by the teacher; to improve students’ 

critical thinking skill, and to challenge the students to solve the problem critically and creatively. The 

good implementation is influenced by the good implementation of the questioning section, the good 

implementation of teacher questioning strategies combined with the good skill of questioning, and 

the interactive atmosphere interaction in the EFL class. The weaknesses of the implementation of 

teacher’s questioning strategies toward critical questions are some students still weren’t used to 

critical questions as it required them to use higher-order thinking skill to answer, so it diminishes 

their enthusiasm to answer critical questions during the questioning section. In line with this, the 

weaknesses of implementing teacher’s questioning strategies also influenced by the lack of students’ 

English proficiency and lack of comprehension of the material discussed. Even though teacher 

questioning strategies were implemented well, some teachers’ questioning strategies and teachers’ 

questioning skills should be improved to get a better implementation of teachers’ questioning 

strategies toward critical questions in EFL classroom interaction. 

The first suggestion is for English teachers. In implementing teachers’ questioning strategies, a 

teacher should engage the students to participate in the questioning section. The teacher also has to 

pose either a lower or higher-level of questions during the learning process. To enhance students’ 

critical thinking skills, it is suggested to apply a higher-level of questions, especially critical 

questions. Probing is a strategy to elicit students’ responses by giving probing questions. The use of 

probing question is to explore further information related to the critical questions given. As the 

importance of probing questions, it is suggested that probing questions should be improved well, so 

it would make the students answer to a critical questions. Other questioning strategies also should be 

improved, such as wait-time, repetition, paraphrasing, and simplifying. Each strategy cannot be 

stood alone; hence, it would get better to combine all of those strategies to make the questioning 

section responsive and attractive.  

Second, students should be more active in answering the question, especially critical 

questions, without being reluctant and not confident. The teacher could provoke the students with a 

lower-level of questions before posing a higher-level of the question, in this case, is a critical 

question. If the students want to improve their self-confidence, they could answer the teacher’s 



Modi Nur Kholisoh, Dwi Anggani Linggar Bharati/ ELT Forum 10 (2) (2021) 

145 

 

questions periodically. Another thing that could be implemented to stimulate the students to actively 

answer the critical question is by the use of token reinforcement to which give additional score; thus, 

they will be motivated to answer the question.  

Third is suggestion for future researchers. This study contains a reference to conduct the 

research related to teachers’ questioning strategies and students’ perceptions toward critical 

questions. From this study, they will get the theory about the implementation of teachers’ 

questioning strategies and how the students perceived critical questions in EFL classroom 

interaction. This study provides students’ perceptions when they are given critical questions in which 

can be used to support theory and evidence for their research. I suggest to future researchers to 

explore widely students perceptions toward other types of questions, for example, students’ 

perceptions toward factual questions.  

  

 

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