The Role of English Teachers’ Critical Thinking and Creativity in their classroom Academic Behavior

This study investigated the role of English Teachers critical thinking and creativity in their classroom academic behavior. To answer the research questions300 Iranian teachers of several school and language institutes in Tehran were asked to take part in the study. Teachers held Mastersor Bachelor’s degree in English and a small number of participants educated in other majors. The teachers ranged in age from 23 to 56.To gather data, two instruments were used including Critical Thinking and Creativity Questionnaire and the teachers’ behavior observed by observation formdeveloped by Tomlinson. The data were analyzed through multiple regressions. The results revealed that there was a significant and negative relationship between teachers’ creativity and their classroom academic behavior (r= -.242). Moreover, no significant correlation was found between teachers’ critical thinking and their classroom academic behavior (r= 0.033). The results of multiple regressions revealed that only creativity whose t value equal -4.327 can be a good predictor of academic behavior but critical thinking cannot predictsacademic behavior in the model. The findings of this study have implications for experts, Ministry of Education, and curriculum designers to provide conditions for creative and critic teachers to have a more effective role in planning the curriculum without the interruption of institutes and schools, so they can perform freely and use their critical thinking and creativity in educational setting.