An Investigation of the Effecets of Critical Thinking Lessons on Learners’ and Teachers’ Perceptions and the Quality of Classroom Discussins: A Case Study

An Investigation of the Effecets of Critical Thinking Lessons on Learners’ and Teachers’ Perceptions and the Quality of Classroom Discussins: A Case Study

Haifa, Alnofaie

Recent studies have reached positive findings regarding the significant role of critical thinking pedagogy in learning English as a Foreign Language (EFL). (See Davidson and Dunham, 1995; Erkaya, 2005; Correia, 2006; Yang, 2009; Chen, 2010; Li Li, 2011). However, further research is still needed to highlight the issue that this pedagogy could be challenging for learners and might lead to unsatisfactory outcomes, a point that the present paper addresses. Moreover, the majority of existing studies have paid more attention to examining learning outcomes rather than learning processes through employing pre and post achievement measures. This paper presents a case study that has infused critical thinking into an EFL speaking classroom over one semester in Saudi Arabia. The aim of this study was to investigate both barriers and merits of implementing the critical thinking pedagogy. The SPARE model (Burden and Williams, 1996) for evaluating classroom interventions has been adapted to evaluate this intervention. Participants were 18 high school graduates who have enrolled a compulsory English language programme, before starting their undergraduate degrees at a prestigious university. Data were collected through regular interviews with the learners and their teacher, observation field notes and audio recordings of classroom discussions. Findings suggested that participants did generally value learning through critical thinking lessons in terms of engagement. However, the quality of talk was influenced by the topics of discussions rather than the types of thinking tasks. Another finding was that learners avoided using argumentative phrases in both pre and post course speaking activities. They viewed these phrases as barriers to fluency. Speaking of transferability of argumentative skills, there was no evidence that learners have transferred these skills into discussions that occurred in other courses. Implications for future implementation of critical thinking pedagogy have been drawn from these findings.

Conference or Workshop Item
PeerReviewed

2012-05

842