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3. English Teachers' Ability In Creating Questionsusing Bloom's Taxonomy In Stimulating Students' Thingking Oleh Yana Haryati, M.Pd.,M.Ed.

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Tanggal : 15 December 2020, Kategori : Artikel Pendidikan 2387x

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ENGLISH TEACHERS’ ABILITY IN CREATING QUESTIONSUSING BLOOM’S TAXONOMY IN STIMULATING STUDENTS’ THINKING

 

Yana Haryati

SMK-SPP Negeri Samarinda, East Borneo, yanaharyati00@gmail.com

 

Abstract: Since the implementation of Curriculum 2013 in Indonesia, the term HOTS has been discussed by teachers from all subjects. HOTS has to be integrated in all phases of teaching and learning, from preparation to evaluation. Teachers’ questioning, a strategic way to enhance students’ thinking, gets a lot of attention. With the guidance of Bloom’s Taxonomy, teachers’ questions are intended to scaffold students’ thinking. In English teaching, teachers’ questions serve more. They are important vehicles to practice English in genuine situations. English teachers should be models in thinking and language using. This mini descriptive qualitative study describes the ability of English teachers in vocational schools to construct questions using Bloom’s Taxonomy. It is also intended to find out the problems the teachers experience when creating the questions. The results from the online questionnaire reveal that all the six teacher-respondents misplaced the questions in some levels. The teachers reported they had problems related to the knowledge about the levels in the taxonomy, questions’ wording, and the text’s length and complexity. Some suggestions for English teachers’ development and further research are given. 

 

Keywords: English, teachers’ questions, vocational schools, Bloom’s Taxonomy

 

 

Introduction

Higher order thinking skill or HOTS has gained its popularity in Indonesia since the introduction of the latest curriculum, Curriculum 2013. It feels like, suddenly, all teachers talk about it and teacher development programs are moved toward it. HOTS is integrated in the preparation stage of teaching and learning process (Ariyana, Pudjiastuti, Bestary, & Zamrony, 2018)until the evaluation stages(Setiawati, Oktavia, Ariyana, Bestary, & Pudjiastuti, 2018).  With this integration, Indonesian government hopes the graduates will possess the skills needed to face the 21^st century, namely critical thinking, creativity and innovation, communication, collaboration, and confidence (Ariyana et al., 2018).

HOTS has been discussed long in education. Yet, a straightforward definition of what HOTS ishas not been reached. A widely used definition in education might one offered by Lewis and Smith (1993, p. 136); that is “Higher order thinking occurs when a person takes new information and information stored in memory and interrelates and/or rearranges and extends this information to achieve a purpose or find possible answer in perplexing situation”.Thus, new information needs to be understood, inferred, connected with other facts and concepts, classified, manipulated, and put together in aninnovative or novel ways, then applied as a fresh solution to a new problem (Thomas & Thorne, 2009).

HOTS is not exclusive that only gifted persons can have it. It can be learnt and trained. As suggested in the definition above, to activate HOTS, the presence of a puzzling situation is a requirement. In the classroom, teacher’s questions act as thesestimulants. Teachers ask hundreds questions in the classroom everyday. Depending on the lesson objectives and the students’ needs, questions are used for various purposes, such as controlling the class, raising students’ interest in the lesson to be taught, reviewing the material that has been taught, inviting participation of students from various intellectual levels, increasing students' understanding of the material being studied, and many more. In English classroom, questions are used to provide a chance for students to practice their English in genuine interactions. According to Elder and Paul (1998), questioning is vital to powerful thinking, not the answers. When someone comes to an answer to a question, he stops thinking unless other more provocative questions are posed. In the learning of HOTS inthe classroom, asking follow-up questions or probing is teacher’s duty. This need to be done regularly in the hope that the students will imitate this until they do not need any assistance and can do self-questioning as their new habit. Therefore, it is crucial for teachers to be able to construct questions.

Generally, questions are divided into two, i.e. display questions and referential questions. Display questions or closed questions are intended to find out the students' initial knowledge related to the contentthey are going to learn and to check their understanding of the material that has been studied in the previous meetings. In English teaching, this type of questions usually focuses on the form or meaning of the language structureand other things related to the structure, or comprehension questions related to the facts in texts. Mostly, this type of questions requires short answers, including answers like Yes/No. The teachers can anticipate the answers. In contrast, in referential questions the teacher cannot predict the students' answers. The answers could be information, opinions, or explanations related to the lesson. This type of questions usually focus more on content rather than the linguistic aspects. According to Ur (2012) question construction is more complex in referential type.

In relation to HOTS-oriented learning in the 2013 Curriculum, Ariyana et al. (2018), suggest teachers to ask questions within these categories: (1) inferential questions, i.e. questions that are immediately given after students observe or review the teaching material presented by the teacher; (2) Interpretation questions, i.e. questions that require students' ability to give meaning to incomplete information in teaching materials given by the teacher; (3) Transfer questions, i.e. questions that are intended to broaden students' horizons by applying knowledge from other concepts they have learned; (4) Hypothetical questions, i.e. questions that require students to predict and draw conclusions for generalization. If we examine closely to the description of each question type, we may categorized the first and second types into display questions and the other two types can be included into referential questions.

Basically, the choice of question types lay solely on the teachers because theyare the ones who decide the lesson’s objectives, design the learning experiences the students need to do to achieve the goals, evaluate the students’ achievements, and use the evaluation results for better teaching learning experiences in the future.In English teaching, the teachersneed to consider the students’ English proficiencies in creating questions. Low-English-proficiency students might feel much pressure just to answer display questions. Answering questions in language class requires more complex procedures than in other subjectswhich are delivered in the students’ native language. It is because there is a necessity to produce the learnt language, not to mention the psychological burden. Other important thing to consider is the cognitive levels of the questions. Teachers’ questions direct how the students think. To make sure the questions give the intended results, teachers need to use a guidance.

The most widelycitedguidance in questioning in education right now might be Bloom’s Taxonomy (Bloom, 1956). It is a cognitive development taxonomy developed by Benjamin Bloom. It has been revised by Anderson and Krathwohl in 2001. Similar with the original version of the taxonomy, Anderson and Krathwohl (2001)divides thinking into six hierarchical levels, i.e. remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating. Remembering level involves recalling and retrieving previously learned material. Questions in this level may include defining key terms in texts, mentioning steps, and recalling facts and concepts. Understanding level demonstrates comprehension of facts, ideas, meaning,and concepts by organizing, comparing, translating, interpreting, giving descriptions, and paraphrasing. Questions or activities in this level may include restating main ideas of a paragraph, describing characters and settings in a story, or translating sentences. In applying level, learners solve problems by applying the acquired knowledge, facts, procedures, and techniques in novel ways. Questions or activities in this level may include constructing new sentences using the learned vocabularies, acting out a part of a story, or interpreting a poem’s meaning. In analyzing level, learners examine and break information into parts to understand it completely. Questions in this level may include comparing or contrasting information, separating parts of texts, and analyzing text structures. Evaluating level comprises making judgement based on criteria or standards. Questions in this level may relate to comparison of cultures or values, evaluation of appropriateness, or prediction of what will happen based on the information given. In creating level, learners put ideas to form a new pattern. Questions or activities in this level may include creating a different ending to a story, adding a new details of a story, or creating a short story based on a song lyrics.

Bloom’s taxonomy, the original or revised version, is a framework. The principles in it are not strictly organized. It is not a theory of instruction which can predict how learners behave. As the result, one category may overlap to other categories. Applying, for example, can present in almost all levels when learning English. Learners will not produce any utterances in English if they do not apply the language concepts. Despite its lack, the taxonomy is still regarded very helpful to direct thinking.

It is commonly known that the first three cognitive levels – remembering, understanding, applying - are regarded as lower order thinking skills (LOTS) while the other three levels – analyzing, evaluating, creating - are included in HOTS. If we relate this to the types of questions, then, display questions can be claimed to be in the area of LOTS while referential questions in the area of HOTS.This classification often lead educators to underestimate display questions. However, the superiority of referential questions cannot be seen overly since display questions are important as well. Bloom’s Taxonomy cannot be started from the middle level to the top. Thinking process always starts from what learners has known and stored in their memory and then, new information can be related to the existing one. In English teaching, if the goals of an English lesson is students’ interaction, then display questions are effective tools to invite participation from students with various levels of English proficiencies(Al-Zahrani & Al-Bargi, 2017; Farahian & Rezaee, 2012; Rido, Ibrahim, & Nambiar, 2014). But if analysis, critical, and creative thinking with richer language-learning procedure are desired, then referential questions are more appropriate (Ur, 2012). It can be said that applying only one area of thinking skills can endanger the teaching learning process. LOTS prepares strong foundations for HOTS. Teachers’ questions take a crucial role here.

In English classroom, questions do not always come in the form of interrogatives, such as What’s your favorite color?The same question can be presented in a statement telling students to do an activity, for example Tell me about your favorite color. In other words, if the teacher’s utterance invite any responses expressed in English, both written and spoken, then the utterance can be regarded as a question. In studies discussing about questions in English classroom, a common problem occurred is English teachers tend to use more LOTS questions than HOTS ones in the class (for example Ashadi & Lubis, 2017; Davoudi & Sadhegi, 2015; Sunggingwati & Nguyen, 2013). However, not many studies discussabout the causes of this problem, specifically causes related to the teachers understanding towards Bloom’s Taxonomy. One of few studies was conducted by Sunggingwati and Nguyen (2013). Taking a general high-school in Samarinda, Indonesia, as the setting and reading activity as the focus, this qualitative case study was started with classroom observations of three selected teachers. It was revealed that the teachers exposed more LOTS questions to the students. In the interview sessions, it was discovered that the teachers’ struggled to construct HOTS questions because of their lack of knowledge about the taught topics and their hesitation about the grammatical structures. The researchers then analyzed the textbooks used by the teachers. The results indicated that the questions in the textbooks were mainly LOTS questions. From their findings, Sunggingwati and Nguyen (2013)concluded that teachers’ content and professional knowledge and textbooks’ questions contribute in the teachers’ ability in constructing HOTS questions. However, this study did not discovered anything about the teachers’ knowledge and ability in constructing questions using cognitive taxonomy, especially related to Bloom’s Taxonomy.

A study about the use of the taxonomy and teachers knowledge about it is done by Yusoff and Seman (2018). The study was conducted in Malaysia. It took nine primary school teachers as the subjects.After the interviews, Yusoff and Seman (2018) revealed that, although the majority of the teachers could mention the subskills in Bloom’s Taxonomy, only half of them practiced asking HOTS questions based on the taxonomy. In other words, there is no guarantee that if a teacher is familiar with the taxonomy, they will implement it in constructing questions. Nevertheless, this study does not inform anything about English teachers’ knowledge and ability competence in creating questions based on the taxonomy since the teachers taught non-English-language subjects.

The present study is done to shed light upon the scarcity of what is knowing from the English language teachers’ knowledge and ability to construct questions based on Bloom’s taxonomy. It is intended to describe English teachers’ ability in creating questions based on the cognitive levels in the taxonomy.  Additionally, it is aimed to discover the problems the teachers experience in creating the questions.  The findings from this study, hopefully, can enrich knowledge about the topic.

 

 

Methods

 

Research Methodology

This mini study deploys a qualitative approach since the data generated by the questionnaire,as the data collection tool,were in the form of words comprising of the teachers’ questions and the problems they faced when forming the questions.  Furthermore, as classification and interpretation to describe the data were needed, this study is also a descriptive one.

 

 

Research subjects

As suggested inCohen, Manion, and Morrison (2011), convenience sampling was the appropriate sampling technique for this study. It took any teachers from the population who happened to be available and accessible at the time of the questionnaire distribution.The population are English teachers in vocational high schools in Samarinda. They join in an English teachers’ community named Musyawarah Guru Mata Pelajaran (MGMP) Bahasa Inggris SMK Samarinda. From a hundred teachers in the community, six teachers responded. The low-response problem might have happened because the teachers were busy preparing the schools’ final examinations at that time (May 2019). As the consequent from the decision of sampling type and the research methodology, generalization is negligible.

 

 

Data Collection Method and Instrument

This research employs survey as the data collection method. A researcher-made short online questionnaire was distributed using Google Form in the last week of May 2019. The link of the form was distributed via MGMP’s Whatsapp group. To ensure there were no questions related to what to do with the questionnaire, it was made in Bahasa Indonesia. The questionnaire contains a text titled What is anger?

 

Box 1. The text used in the questionnaire.

 

The text above was chosen because oftwo main reasons. The first reason wasits topic is general. As it has been mentioned before, the subjects of this research were teachers from vocational high schools so it was quite tricky to choose the topic of the text so that it was not too specific but could be understood generally.The second reason was this text uses familiar words to accommodate different levels of English proficiency among the students as the questions made were intended to be given to the students. According to the researchers’ own teaching experience for the past 10 years, vocational schools’ students tend to be in low-English proficiency level.

In the questionnaire, the respondents were asked to create six questions according to the text. These questions were intended to be posed to their students. The questions were classified based on the cognitive levels from the revised version of Bloom’s Taxonomy(Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001), namely Remembering, Understanding, Applying, Analyzing, Evaluating, and Creating. This taxonomy was chosen because it is often cited in teachers’ guides in the implementation of Curriculum 2013(Ariyana et al., 2018; Setiawati et al., 2018).Then, the teachers were asked whether they experienced any difficulties in creating questions. Furthermore, they were asked to choose the cognitive levels they felt having difficulties on. Lastly, the teachers select the causes of the problem they faced. The full questionnaire is enclosed in Appendix 1.

 

 

Data Analysis Technique

As the implication of the research methodology, the data gathered were analyzed straight-forwardly. It is suggested by Lambert and Lambert (2012) that a qualitative descriptive study does not require in-depth interpretation since its main goal is to describe a phenomenon. In this study the data were the subjects-made questions and the problems the subjects reported. The questions were analyzedto see the appropriateness of the questions made and the assigned level. The inappropriate questions were, then, classified based on the cognitive level in the taxonomy. A table (see Appendix 2) was used to help with the classification. The problems the teachers faced during constructing the questions would be connected to the questions they made.

 

Result

Below are the result of the questionnaire, comprising the teacher-made questions and the problems theyexperienced when constructing the questions. The mistyped words had been corrected by the researcher.

 

 

Teacher 1 (T1)

 

Remembering:     What is anger according to psychologists?

Understanding:    What happens to our heart when we are angry?

Applying:            What will happen if a bad-tempered person start practicing relaxing technique?

Analyzing:           How a simple technique can help people manage their anger?

Evaluating:          Why relaxation technique can help high-tempered couple manage their relationship?

Creating:             Write steps of simple relaxation technique according to your understanding based on the text above!

T1 reported she had difficulties in creating questions for Evaluating and Creating because the text provided was too simple and short. She also admitted that she did not understand those two levels.

 

 

Teacher 2 (T2)

 

Remembering:    Based on the text, what causes make us angry?

Understanding:  According to psychologists,what is anger?

Applying:           How do you control your anger?

Analyzing:          What are internal and external events that cause anger? What are the differences?

Evaluating:         What is your characteristic about anger?

Creating:            None

T2 reported she had problems in creating questions for Evaluation and Creating levels because she thought those levels need the teacher’s critical thinking.

 

 

Teacher 3 (T3)

 

T3 did not construct any questions at all. However, she reported that she had difficulties in creating question for Evaluating level only. She also explained further that she did not understand the level.

 

 

Teacher 4 (T4)

 

Remembering:   What is anger?

Understanding:  What are the causes of anger?

Applying:           How can you control your anger?

Analyzing:        If you have a meeting,but it rains all day long and flood everywhere,will you be angry? Give the reason.

Evaluating:         None

Creating:            None

T4 informed that Evaluating level was challenging for her and it was because the text was too simple and short.

 

 

Teacher 5 (T5)

 

Remembering:    What is the text about?

Understanding: Give reasons why people can be angry?

Applying:           How is the process of anger according to a psychologist?

Analyzing:          What are the causes of anger?

Evaluating:         According to a psychologist, can anger be treated in what way?

Creating:            If you're angry with your friend, make a letter to your friend and give a reason, why you're angry with your friend.

T5 stated that she had problems in creating questions for Applying and Analyzing level. She explained that she understood the levels actually, but she had difficulties in constructing or wording the questions.

 

 

Teacher 6 (T6)

 

Remembering:    What is anger? What you can do about it?

Understanding: Why is anger called as feeling? And what is the connection with our body?

Applying:           Anger caused by? And how to control it?

Analyzing:          Why we have to control our angry feeling? What will happen if we can't control it? And what will happen if we can't control our feeling?

Evaluating:         Do you think join courses and read some books about angry feeling useful to control our angry feeling? Why? 

Creating:            Write down your opinion about 'Anger Management'? Does it useful to control our angry feelings?

T6 reported that she found difficulty in Evaluating level, but she did not state the reason.

 

 

Discussion

This study is aimed to describe English teachers of vocational schools’ ability in creating questions based on Bloom’s Taxonomy. It is also intended to discover the problems they faced when creating the questions. The subjects of this study were six female English teachers aged 25-35 years old. They teach in different state and private vocational schools across Samarinda. T1 and T2 hold master degrees in English education from a join program between the state university in the town and a state-owned university in Adelaide, South Australia. T4 is in last semester of her master program in English education. T3, T5 and T6 hold bachelor’s degrees in English education. The teachers have2-10 years of teaching experience. T1, T2, T5, and T6 are certified teachers. All of the subjectsparticipate actively in English teachers’ community (MGMP Bahasa Inggris SMK) in the city.

The table below contains the subjects-made questions in their unedited version. The analysis of the cognitive levels based on the researcher’s interpretation according to the revised version of Bloom’s Taxonomy are in bold.

 

Table 1. The results of questionnaire and their analysis: Teachers’ questions

Subjects	Remembering	Understand-ing	Applying	Analyzing	Evaluating	Creating
Teacher 1	What is anger according to psychologists? Remembering	What happens to our heart when we are angry? Remembering	What will happen if a bad-tempered person start practicing relaxing technique? Understanding	How a simple technique can help people manage their anger? Analyzing	Why relaxation technique can help high-tempered couple manage their relationship? Evaluating	Write steps of simple relaxation technique according to your understanding based on the text above! Creating
Teacher 2	Based on the text, what causes make us angry? Remembering	According to psychologists. What is anger? Remembering	How do you control your anger? Applying	What are internal and external events that cause anger? What are the defferences? Understanding	What is your characterict about anger? Evaluating
Teacher 3
Teacher 4	What is anger? Remembering, the title of the text	What are the causes of anger? Remembering	How can you control your anger? Applying	If you have a meeting,but it rains all day long and flood everywhere,will you be angry?give the reason Applying
Teacher 5	what is the texs about? Understanding	give  reasons why people can be angry? Remembering	how is the process of anger according to a psychologist?Analyzing	what are the causes of anger? Remembering	according to a psycologist, can anger be treated in what way? Understanding	if you're angry with your friend, make a letter to your friend and give a reason, why you're angry with your friend. Creating
Teacher 6	What is anger? What you can do about it? Remembering, the title of the text	Why is anger called as feeling? And what is the connection with our body? Understanding	Anger caused by? And how to control it? Remembering	Why we have to control our angry feeling? What will happen if we can't control it? And what will happen if we can't control our feeling? Understanding	Do you think join courses and read some books about angry feeling useful to control our angry feeling? Why? Evaluating	Write down your opinion about 'Anger management' ?Does it useful to control our angry feelings? Evaluating

From the results of the questionnaire, in Remembering, we may observe that T1, T2, T4, T5, and T6were able to construct questions. However, question from T5, “What is the text about?” can be classified into Understanding. This is because to be able to answer this questions, students need tocomprehend and summarize the whole text.The questions from other teachers demand the students to remember and recall information stated explicitly in the text. Furthermore, if we examine the wording of the questions, we may see that T4 and T6 took the sentences from the text’s title right away. It could be a hint that those teachers had difficulties in paraphrasing.

In Understanding, all teachers, except T3, were able to make questions. But only T6’s question can be classified in this level. To answer T6’s question, the students have to understand and explain what happens to our body when we are angry. Some initial information is mentioned in the text, but the students can relate it to their own experience. The questions from other teachers are categorized into Remembering since the answers of these questions are stated explicitly in the text. For instance, the answer for T2’s question “According to psychologists, what is anger?” is mentioned clearly in paragraph 1 sentence 1 of the text.

In Applying, questions from T2 and T4 can be categorized in this level because to answer the questions, the students should use the information from the text to novel situations. T2 asked the students to apply the information to themselves while T4 gave a situation to be solved. T6’s question is included in Remembering because the answer is stated in the text explicitly. T1’s question can be categorized in Understanding because students need to comprehend the text and then predicting the result if someone starting the relaxation course. Question from T5 can be categorized in Analyzing. Since the information is not in the text, to answer this questionstudents need to do further research which requires more complex activities, like planning the research, identifying sources, comparing and selecting the sources, analyzing the sources, drawing conclusion, and many more.

In Analyzing, only question from T1 can be categorized in this level. T2 and T5’s questions can be categorized into Remembering or Understanding because in answering, the students just need to find and understand the information in the text. T4’s question can be classified into Applying since it needs the students to apply the information they get from the text and give explanation. Question from T6 can be categorized into Understanding because it asks the students to make prediction based on the information from the text.

In Evaluating, T1, T2, and T6 are able to make the questions. T1 and T6’s questions asks the students to evaluate the effectiveness of a way to control anger offered in the text while T2’s question demands the students to do self-evaluation toward their anger. The rest of the teachers did not create any questions.

In Creating, only half of the teachers made the questions. T1 asked the students to list the steps of relaxation technique. However, she suggested the students to refer to the text for the stepswhich, in fact, the text does not mention any steps. What T1 asked could be the students need to find any related information about relaxation to handle anger and develop their own technique. Different from T1, T5 asks the students to write a letter to their friends telling about their anger. T6 offered a question in this level, however, her question should be in Evaluation because it demands the students to assess and give explanation about the effectiveness of an anger management program.

From the analysis above, it is clear that the respondents faced problems in creating appropriate questions for all of the cognitive levels. Only T1 could fulfill almost all the levels. She only missed Understanding by making Remembering question. This is relevant with the result of the questionnaire where all the teachers confirmed they experienced difficulties in creating questions. Five teachers reported that Evaluating is the most demanding level. The next challenging level is Creating. The reasons are various:T1 and T4 reported that the difficulties were because the text provided was too simple and short;T1 and T3 confessed they did not understand the levels; T2 said the teacher’s critical thinking skills were needed in making the questions in her problematic levels; and, T5 said that wording the questions was the cause of her difficulties, not the taxonomy; unfortunately, T6 did not inform her difficulties. The interesting fact here is what happen to T3. She was not able to make any questions at all. Nevertheless, she reported that her problem was only at Evaluating and confessed that she did not understand   the level. Although all teachers mentioned that their problems are in HOTS areas, in fact, the teachers were also struggle to make questions in LOTS areas (Remembering, Understanding, Applying). Nonetheless, in my consideration, “blaming” the teachers for misplacing the questions is not entirely correct. Bloom’s Taxonomy is a framework, not a theory. As the result, the distinctions between the categories are not clear-cut. It is very possible the subjectswere confused placing the questions because of this unclear divisions.

In conclusion, all the teachers seem having problem in implementing Bloom’s Taxonomy. Moreover, they felt creating HOTS questions are challenging. It is normal since Ur (2012, p.230) has suggested HOTS questionsin English classrooms is“harder to formulate”. Those kind of questions demand teachers to activate their own higher order thinking related to the content taught and English knowledge. And, one very important factor in HOTS activation is the teachers’ “intellectual history” (Lewis & Smith, 1993, p.136). It is suggested by Thomas and Thorne (2009)that conceptual knowledge has to be exist first, then a new information can be inserted and operated with the help of existing concepts. In this study, it is clear that the teachers’ basic concept about Bloom’s taxonomy and English language itself need to be strengthen.

 

Conclusion

 

It is implied form the data analysis and discussion parts above that creating questions that scaffold students’ thinking is not an easy job. Teachers experienced problems,not only in HOTS areas but also in LOTS areas. This situation is more complicated in English classrooms, where teachers have to act as models of the thinking process and language practice. The problems the teachers faced were diverse, ranging from the material to be taught to their own higher order thinking skills. Therefore, it is suggested that English teachers in vocational schools to strengthen their knowledge comprising of professional, pedagogical, and content related. English teachers should realize that increasing higher order thinking needs process. It can be trained and should be start within the teachers themselves. The more a teacher push himself to higher thinking levels, the more trained himself to create and pose questions to stimulate his students’ thinking. Additionally, the findingsrecommend the teacher community’s leaders or education agency to consider giving specific training related to this topic to English teachers in vocational schools, especially in Samarinda.

Lastly, this study was done with some limitations. The data gathered could be richer if the researcher could apply more data collection techniques, such as in-situ interviews and classroom observations. All these could not be done due to the time constraint. Further research can be done in the areas of, for example, but not limited to, effective questioning or students’ perception in teachers questioning.

 

Acknowledgement

I would like to express my gratitude to Allah because under His guidance I could finish reporting this mini study. I also express my special thanks of gratitude to the six English teachers who were willing to be the subjects of this mini study. I would also thank the principal of SMK-SPP Negeri Samarinda for allowing me spending much time in school to write this study report. Much gratitude is also sent to my family for their endless support. And lastly, I really appreciate the committee of the 10^th AISOFOL for choosing this study to be presented in the prestigious event. Hopefully this study can enrich the knowledge in the area of teacher questioning and HOTS.

 

 

References

 

Al-Zahrani, M. Y., & Al-Bargi, A. (2017). The impact of teacher questioning on creating interaction in EFL: A discourse analysis. English Language Teaching, 10(6), 135-150. doi: 10.5539/elt.v10n6p135

 

Anderson, L. W., & Krathwohl, D. R. (2001). A taxonomy for learning, teaching, and assessing: A revision of Bloom's Taxonomy of educational objectives (abridged ed.). New York: Longman.

 

Ariyana, Y., Pudjiastuti, A., Bestary, R., & Zamrony. (2018). Buku pegangan pembelajaran berorientasi pada keterampilan berpikir tingkat tinggi. Jakarta: Kemdikbud.

 

Ashadi, R. I., & Lubis, N. (2017). A survey on the levels of questioning of ELT: A case study in an Indonesian tertiary education. Advances in Language and Literary Study, 8(3), 27-31. doi: 10.7575/aiac.alls.v.8 n. 3 p. 26

 

Bloom, B. S. (1956). Taxonomy of educational objectives: The classification of educational goals. New York: David McKay.

 

Cohen, L., Manion, L., & Morrison, K. (2011). Research methods in education (7 ed.). Oxon: Routledge.

 

Davoudi, M., & Sadhegi, N. (2015). A systematic review of reseach on questioning as a high-level cognitive strategy. English Language Teaching, 8(10), 76-90. doi: 10.5539/elt.v8n10p76

 

Elder, L., & Paul, R. (1998). The role of socratic questioning in thinking, teaching, and learning. The Clearing House, 71, 297-301.

 

Farahian, M., & Rezaee, M. (2012). A case study of an EFL teacher’s type of questions: an investigation into classroom interaction. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 47, 161-167.

 

Lambert, V. A., & Lambert, C. E. (2012). Qualitative descriptive research: An acceptable design. Pacific Rim International Journal of Nursing Research, 6(4), 255-256.

 

Lewis, A., & Smith, D. (1993). Defining higher order thinking. Theory into Practice, 32(3), 131-137.

 

Rido, A., Ibrahim, N., & Nambiar, R. M. K. (2014). Investigating EFL master teacher's classroom interaction strategies: A case study in Indonesian secondary vocational school. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 18, 420-424.

 

Setiawati, W., Oktavia, A., Ariyana, Y., Bestary, R., & Pudjiastuti, A. (2018). Buku penilaian berorientasi higher order thinking skills Jakarta: Kemdikbud.

 

Sunggingwati, D., & Nguyen, H. T. M. (2013). Teachers' questioning in reading lessons: A case study in Indonesia. Electronic Journal on Foreign Language Teaching, 10(1), 80-95.

 

Thomas, A., & Thorne, G. (2009). Higher order thinking.   Retrieved 2 July, 2019, from https://www.readingrockets.org/article/higher-order-thinking

 

Ur, P. (2012). A course in language teaching. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

 

Yusoff, W. M. W., & Seman, S. C. (2018). Teachers' knowledge on higher thinking and questioning skills: A case study at a primary school in Trengganu, Malaysia International Journal of Academic Research of Progessive Research and Development, 7(2), 45-63. doi: 10.6007/IJARPED/v7-i2/4120

 

 

 

Appendices

 

Appendix 1. The Questionairre

Silakan baca teks berikut dengan seksama.

 

Buatlah enam pertanyaan dalam Bahasa Inggris berdasarkan teks diatas. Pertanyaan-pertanyaan yang dibuat merujuk pada enam level kognitif dari Bloom’s Taxonomy. Buatlah satu pertanyaan untuk tiap level. Pertanyaan-pertanyaan ini akan Anda ajukan pada siswa.

 

1. Remembering (mengingat)

________________________________________________________________

 

2. Understanding (memahami)

______________________________________________________________________

 

3. Applying (menerapkan)

 ______________________________________________________________________

 

4. Analysing (menganalisis)

  ______________________________________________________________________

 

5. Evaluating (menilai)

  ______________________________________________________________________

 

 

6. Creating (mencipta)

  ______________________________________________________________________

 

Apakah Anda menemui kesulitan dalam membuat pertanyaan pada satu atau lebih dari satu level kognitif ?

€  Ya

€  Tidak

 

Jika Ya, pada level kognitif manakah Anda mulai menemukan kesulitan dalam membuat pertanyaan?

€  Remembering (mengingat)

€ Understanding (memahami)

€ Applying (menerapkan)

€ Analysing (menganalisis)

€ Evaluating (menilai)

€ Creating (mencipta)

 

Menurut Anda, kesulitan yang Anda temui disebabkan karena

€  teks yang disediakan tidak menarik

€  teks yang disediakan terlalu sederhana dan pendek

€  tidak memahami level kognitif tersebut

€  tidak mengerti isi teks

€  kesulitan dalam menentukan tata bahasa (grammar) yang benar

  ________________________________________

 

 

Appendix 2. Examples of Operational Verbs in Blooms’ Taxonomy

Taken from https://www.flickr.com/photos/vblibrary/4576825411/

 

 

Bio Statement

Yana Haryati is English teacher in SMK-SPP Negeri Samarinda starting from 2010. She took her master degree in English education in Mulawarman University and the University of Adelaide. She finished the program in 2015. Her main interests are English classrooms interaction and communicative language teaching.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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