Capturing Students' Critical Thinking Skills in English for Academic Writing Course

Abstract

Writing has been regarded as the most difficult language skills since students in Indonesia were not familiar with this skill in the early and middle education level. On the other hand, in higher education level the students should produce a thesis to complete their study. Facilitating the students to be ready for the thesis writing, English for Academic Writing course was delivered to the students. Research-based teaching method was implemented in the course in order to help the students improved their writing skills as well as the critical thinking skills. The purpose of this research was to investigate the impact of the research-based teaching method toward the students' critical thinking skills in writing. Case study was implemented to reach the conclusion. Fifty (50) Global Class students majoring in Information System were observed to gain the result. Questionnaire result was used to support the observation data. The result showed there was improvement in students' critical thinking in academic writing after joining the class. Further, the result also found the method may help the students sharpen their 21st Century skills such as collaboration and communication.