A Survey of EFL Teachers’ Attitudes towards Critical Thinking Instruction

Abstract

The ability to think critically is an important and necessary skill that language learners need to develop for their academic and social success. Therefore, providing an active learning environment that is conductive to creativity and in which different activities ask learners to think critically is considered as one of the foreign language teachers’ tasks. This study aims at exploring EFL teachers’ attitude toward critical thinking (CT) instruction. The participants were 30 EFL teachers who taught English at different language institutes in Tonekabon, Iran. They were surveyed on their beliefs about the concept of CT and its place in their career. Result indicated that most of them have a clear idea toward the concept of CT and believed that it is an im-portant part of their job as a teacher to increase learners’ critical thought. On the other hand, most of them conveyed a strong desire for more training in how to teach these skills. Therefore, to increase teachers’ ability in teaching CT, special training courses must be included in teacher training courses.