VietTESOL International Convention 2026

This study explores the relationship between pre-service EFL teachers’ questioning techniques and students’ critical thinking as manifested in classroom interaction in a Vietnamese high school context. Adopting a qualitative case study design, the research draws on classroom discourse analysis of video-recorded lessons taught by three pre-service teachers during their practicum, complemented by semi-structured interviews. The data were analyzed using multiple analytical frameworks, including Yang (2017) for questioning techniques, the IRF (Initiation – Response – Feedback) model for interactional structure, Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy for identifying the cognitive levels of teacher questions, and Peter A. Facione (1990) for examining students' CT skills.

The findings reveal that while a range of questioning techniques were employed, including Redirecting, Probing, and Promoting, these were predominantly associated with lower-level cognitive demands. Student responses were largely concentrated at the levels of interpretation and explanation, with limited evidence of HOTs such as Evaluation and Inference. Among these techniques, Probing showed the greatest potential to elicit more cognitively demanding responses, although its use was not consistently sustained. The study also identifies the gap between teachers’ beliefs about the importance of questioning for fostering CT and their actual classroom practices.

These findings contribute to a more nuanced understanding of how questioning functions in shaping students’ thinking in EFL classrooms and highlighting the need for more strategic use of questioning techniques in teacher education.