Collaborative Writing in EFL Classroom: Comparison on Group, Pair, and Individual Writing Activities in Argumentative Tasks

The integration of Civics elements into the EFL classroom is an organic supplement and deepening of the teaching content and materials, while EFL Civics classroom teaching is a powerful means to strengthen the deep and longitudinal development of students’ critical thinking. This paper discusses the relationship between EFL Civics classroom teaching and the development of critical thinking ability from the theoretical and practical levels respectively. On the basis of existing research, the evaluation index of students’ critical thinking ability is proposed. The CVM coefficient of variation method is improved, and the ICVM and BP neural network algorithm are combined to constitute the evaluation model of students’ critical thinking ability based on ICVM and BP neural network. According to the evaluation process, the level of students’ critical thinking ability after EFL-based Civics classroom teaching is derived. It also integrates teachers’ and students’ evaluation of the effect of English Civics elements integrated into the EFL classroom, and finally obtains the practical teaching effect of the EFL Civics classroom. The overall mean value in the teacher’s side is greater than 3.5 points, which indicates that teachers are basically positive about the effect of integrating Civics in EFL courses, and basically agree with the positive impact of English Civics elements on EFL classroom teaching. Based on the evaluation results of ICVM and BP model, the evaluation scores of students’ critical thinking skills and critical thinking monitoring are higher than the evaluation scores of critical thinking tendency, i.e., the elements of English Thinking can be effectively integrated into the EFL classroom and promote the development of students’ critical thinking skills.

Numerous studies have investigated the integration of critical thinking in EFL classrooms and textbooks. Still, relatively few have investigated the integration of critical thinking into reading lesson plans and classroom instructions. The current study adopted a qualitative case study approach to provide insight into how pre-service EFL teachers infused critical thinking skills into online reading classrooms. The study also gives information on pre-service EFL teachers' challenges in critical thinking integration into reading classrooms. Eight pre-service EFL teachers who completed all three phases of the faculty-mandated teaching practicum program participated in the study. Document analysis, virtual classroom observations, and semi-structured interviews were used as data collection techniques to fulfill the research objectives. As the study framework, Bloom's revised taxonomy was applied to lesson plan data to examine how critical thinking components are incorporated. Virtual classroom observations illuminated the incorporation of critical thinking into reading lessons. In addition, semi-structured interviews were conducted to gather more information regarding the challenges of integrating critical thinking skills. The present study reveals that pre-service EFL teachers integrated critical thinking aspects into reading online classes with a greater emphasis on lower-order cognitive than higher-order cognitive processes. It implies that pre-service EFL teachers had insufficient preparation for teaching practicum programs. Due to the significance of critical thinking skills for EFL students, this study recommends that teacher training institutes strengthen the critical thinking abilities of pre-service EFL teachers so that they are more equipped to teach and promote critical thinking in EFL classrooms.Keywords: classroom instructions, critical thinking, lesson plans, pre-service teachers

Developing higher-order critical thinking skills as one of the central objectives of education has been recently facilitated via software packages. Whereas one such technology as computer-aided argument mapping is reported to enhance levels of critical thinking (van Gelder 2001), its application as a pedagogical tool in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) settings has been rarely explored. In addition, the literature fails to acknowledge whether having the basic skill of representing an argument diagrammatically even with paper and pencil can lead to similar results. That being the case, this study was conducted with the aim of comparing the impact of teaching argument mapping via Ra- tionale TM software versus paper and pencil on Iranian EFL majors' critical thinking skills development. To this end, 180 EFL participants were screened into low and high levels of reading proficiency based on their scores on a sample reading proficiency test. Next, they were randomly assigned to two experimental and one comparison groups. During 12 sessions, the experimental groups were provided with argument mapping instructions while the comparison group received a conventional reading instruction. All participants were pre- and post-tested with the California critical thinking skills test (CCTST). Results suggested that students in the software group significantly outperformed those in the paper and pencil group on overall CCTST and the sub-skills of inference and inductive rea- soning. They also scored significantly higher on all tests compared to the comparison group. However, participants' level of proficiency as well as sex did not show any sig- nificant effect on their performance on overall CCTST and its sub-skills.

It is widely recognized that developing critical thinking skills promotes higher levels of language proficiency and academic success. However, teachers’ perceptions of critical thinking have a significant impact on pedagogical practices, students’ learning, and achievement; therefore, a meticulous understanding of teachers’ perceptions is the prerequisite for the enhancement and effective implementation of critical thinking skills. Against this background, this exploratory study uses a constructivist approach to employ semi structured interviews with 12 EFL teachers at the higher secondary level in Bangladesh to address the research gap in understanding EFL teachers’ perceptions of critical thinking and its practice. The findings revealed that teachers’ knowledge of critical thinking is limited and fragmented, and there is a gap between their perception and the generically recognized concept of critical thinking. This suggests that there is a need to develop teachers’ content knowledge and pedagogical knowledge to promote critical thinking skills in EFL classrooms at higher secondary levels.

This study compares the differential role of critical thinking in learners’ performance on argumentative and narrative written tasks. The study involved the measurement of 70 upper-intermediate learners’ critical thinking using the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal (WGCTA) as well as the elicitation of their performance on the written narrative and argumentative tasks. While the argumentative task required that learners write an argumentative essay giving their opinions concerning the effect of technology on human’s life, the narrative task involved learners in narrating a story based on a picture as a visual cue. Concerning the narrative task, only a significant negative correlation was observed between drawing inferences and the two accuracy measures of the narrative task. With regards to the argumentative task, the correlation analysis showed negative relationships between the three measures of argumentative task fluency and students’ score on the Drawing Inferences subscale. Results of the complexity measures revealed that the syntactic complexity of produced argumentations was affected by learners’ ability to make deductions, interpreting evidence, and evaluating arguments. Finally, with regards to the accuracy of the performances, it was found that only Recognizing Assumptions had a significant, but negative, relationship with error-free clauses percentage and error-free T-unit percentage.

The present study aims to explore critical thinking from EFL Thai students’ perspectives in collaborative writing activity. The subjects were 32 second-year English major students composing paragraph writing in the Writing II course. They were divided into three groups based on their English proficiency: advanced, intermediate, and novice, and data was collected using quantitative and qualitative approaches. The critical thinking skills questionnaire was utilized to collect quantitative data, and the results were analyzed using Mean and Standard deviation. For qualitative data, an interview was used to collect critical thinking skills practice of six students randomly selected. The quantitative results revealed that the highest critical thinking skills practice was found in analyzing (Mean=3.47, SD=1.15), followed by evaluating (Mean=3.44, SD=1.27), and creating (Mean=3.34, SD=.03), respectively. For qualitative results, it was found that the students in the high level of English proficiency group reported they practiced critical thinking by analyzing, evaluating, and creating. They produced a new sentence and a paragraph, selected the best ideas, and categorized the supporting details based on information and ideas from peers. Regarding intermediate and novice level groups, they reported identically that they frequently practiced analyzing and evaluating. Analyzing and assessing were two critical thinking abilities that were commonly utilized. They have to do with comparing and choosing content, as well as elements of arguments and supporting statements. As a result, collaborative writing appeared to promote pupils to use critical thinking skills when writing.

<p>Building students’ critical thinking has been a focus in Education around the world in recent years. The New Zealand Curriculum (2007) is no exception, with an emphasis on critical and creative thinking in its vision statement. However, no advice is offered on how to teach critical thinking. This study uses a qualitative case study approach to explore how teachers teach critical thinking through Philosophy for Children (P4C) and offers some guidance on this for teachers. One of the contributions of this thesis is the claim that the P4C approach enhances social justice by supporting diverse learners – children who need support to achieve at school – to develop critical thinking and language capability. The theoretical framework underpinning my research draws on Bernstein’s (2000) ‘democratic pedagogic rights’ to enhancement, inclusion, and participation, and Wheelahan’s (2007), Young’s (2009) and Young and Muller’s (2013) conceptions of powerful knowledge. While much attention has been given to the theory of powerful knowledge in tertiary and secondary education contexts, to date, very little research has explored what powerful knowledge might look like, in practice, at primary school. Therefore this study makes an original contribution by investigating this unexplored area. Participants in this research included 104 primary school students aged between 8 and 11 years old and their teachers (n = 4) from four diverse primary schools in New Zealand. The research data is drawn from four main sources: audio recordings of classroom discussions, semi-structured focus group interviews with sample students, open-ended interviews with teachers, and student thinking journals. Over a period of 6 months, classes held weekly hour-long P4C dialogues with a focus on both philosophical content and developing critical thinking language and skills. Students were encouraged to evaluate their philosophical and critical thinking both verbally and in written form. The methodological approach incorporates sociocultural perspectives highlighting the key role of language as a mediator and tool for thinking (Mercer, 2000; Vygotsky, 1962, 1978). Transcripts of classroom discussions were analysed both inductively and deductively, using Hennessy et al.’s (2016) coding system for analysing classroom dialogue across educational contexts and Daniel et al.’s (2005) matrix outlining the development of the dialogical critical thinking process. Observation of students’ everyday learning in the classroom, together with their and their teachers’ reflections, revealed that teachers played a significant role in shaping students’ language and critical thinking through modelling, facilitating dialogue, establishing a democratic classroom culture, making thinking visible, and innovating and personalising teaching according to their students’ particular needs. Both students and teachers developed a range of capabilities through participating in (or, in the case of the teachers, leading) P4C dialogue: resilience, receptivity, intersubjectivity. This thesis presents one of the first investigations into the practice of teaching powerful knowledge in primary schools and suggests that explicit teaching of disciplinary language enhances students’ critical thinking capability and constitutes powerful knowledge. A new conception of powerful knowledge is advanced, termed enhancing knowledge, which emphasises how disciplinary knowledge enhances and is complementary to other knowledges, such as social or cultural knowledge, without devaluing their importance. This term also seeks to avoid the potential dominant connotations of the word ‘powerful’. The findings of this study suggest that P4C can offer diverse learners access to enhancing knowledge which has the potential to improve equity in education and enhance social justice.</p>

A quantitative research design approach was used to quantify the dependent variable critical thinking skills using big data technology to draw a research sample from 85 institutions in 18 provinces and regions. A qualitative study of the impact of variables such as the English Civics element in the EFL classroom on students’ critical thinking skills was conducted by gradually adding variables in conjunction with the results of quantitative calculations of students’ critical thinking skills. To explore the influence factors of variables such as English civic and political elements on students’ critical thinking ability, a PCA algorithm was used to quantitatively analyze the influence factors. In this paper, English Civics elements such as “scientific spirit” and “patriotism” have a significant impact on students’ critical thinking ability, and their correlation coefficients are between 0.8 and 0.95.

The emergence of mobile learning applications facilitates the pedagogical approach to developing students’ critical thinking. However, there is a scarcity of investigation on mobile learning applications’ impact on developing critical thinking as the learning outcome. Thus, this study reports the effect of a mobile learning application, ‘English with Noni’, designed to infuse critical thinking instruction in EFL classes on students’ critical thinking level by employing a sequential explanatory mixed-method approach. A quasi-experimental study was conducted to examine the critical thinking level of 65 students of a junior high school in Jakarta, Indonesia, by administering a post-test assessed using a SOLO rubric. Semi-structured interviews to explore students’ responses from using the ‘English with Noni’ application and class observation contributed to the qualitative findings. The quantitative result showed that the critical thinking level of the experimental group using this application improved significantly more than the controlled group did. The qualitative result suggested that the experimental group had positive responses to using it. They confirmed that it was interesting. They also admitted that it contributed to developing their critical thinking (i.e., predicting, providing reasons, expressing viewpoints, finding alternatives, and making conclusions), language skills (i.e., listening, reading, and writing), and sub-skill (vocabulary). The findings imply that critical thinking activities and learning affordances provided in the ‘English with Noni’ application is a potential tool to enhance students’ critical thinking infused in the EFL class, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic situation, by emphasizing self-regulated learning.

Critical discourse analysis and critical thinking: An experimental study in an EFL context

Task-Based Language Teaching (also called TBLT) is a popular and innovative approach to language instruction. The present study aimed to explore the perspectives and practices of TBLT in EFL classrooms. To achieve this, the researcher purposively selected five secondary-level English teachers from Butwal sub-metropolitan city of Rupandehi district. A semi-structured interview was the primary tool and technique for data collection. The collected data were thematically analyzed under six headings, including teachers’ perspectives on the task-based method, tasks and activities, and classroom pedagogy. The findings reveal that TBLT is a learner-centered approach that enhances communication, critical thinking, and problem-solving through real-world tasks. It integrates language skills via collaborative activities, fostering motivation and autonomy. Teachers act as facilitators, guiding and assessing tasks for fluency, accuracy, and skill transfer. Despite challenges like time constraints and assessment complexities, TBLT effectively bridges classroom learning with practical language use through meaningful, engaging, and well-planned activities.The study underscores the importance of incorporating TBLT into EFL curricula to develop practical language abilities and critical thinking skills. It highlights the need for teacher training in task creation, classroom management, and assessment methods. Syllabus designers, textbook writers and policymakers can tackle challenges such as limited time and resources by linking assessment techniques with communicative objectives.

Critical Thinking implies using strategies that engage individuals in complex thinking that demand analysis, judgment, construction, and reconstruction of knowledge to make the right decisions in a given situation. This paper highlights aspects of a research study conducted in an English as a Foreign Language Classroom that used the target language to promote Critical Thinking skills in college students. The study aimed to move from the narrow perspective of teaching a language for the sole reason of developing language skills to a broader conception that envisions language as a tool to infuse Critical Thinking. Throughout the study, the didactic activities raised awareness on the importance of integrating language and thinking skills simultaneously. This paper starts with an overview of major conceptualizations of Critical Thinking that fit the purposes of language teaching, followed by a description of the role of Critical Thinking in the EFL classroom. This paper also discusses important considerations when embracing Critical Thinking approach to teaching. Lastly, best didactic practices that proved to be effective to spark Critical Thinking skills in college students are presented. This paper emphasizes that the appropriate implementation of Critical Thinking strategies constitutes a meaningful learning experience for both teachers and learners. This document also suggests that language competence and criticality are complementary rather than antipodal. Recommendations are that teachers should exploit the myriad of advantages that Critical Thinking strategies bring to the EFL classroom.

Developing critical thinking via reading is a way through which students can be empowered to transform knowledge. Studies indicate that critical thinking should be at the core of reading because it is vital in evaluating the arguments as well as for the transformation of knowledge (Freire, 1985; Facione, 1992). However, the way critical thinking is understood in Iran, as a collectivist society, varies from the way it is conceptualised in individualistic societies, such as in the West (Atkinson, 1997). In the West, it tends to be based on evidence in support of a point of view, fairness in argument and systematic analytical investigation of a concept open-mindedly conveyed by mature reasoning and judgement (Facione, 2011). In Iran, the focus of reading is on memorisation and the routinised reproduction of texts, and critical thinking is often seen as an unfavourable act of criticising others. This study, through semi-structured interviews, reports on five Iranian university students to explore how they conceptualise critical reading and thinking, and the relation between these and knowledge transformation and knowledge production. The study utilises Van Dijk’s (2011) ideology critique approach as it is relevant to knowledge and power in the light of traditional Persian literary scholars and explores how criticality, albeit differently, has always also been a Persian construct.

The research aims to evaluate the effectiveness of implementing VT (Visible Thinking) routines in the EFL classroom for 8th-grade students to develop their critical and creative thinking skills. The objectives include defining VT, examining its impact on critical thinking, identifying thinking practices that support language learning, assessing its effectiveness in learner engagement, exploring its role in fostering creativity, and analyzing the teacher's role in activating VT skills. The study's theoretical value lies in synthesizing research on VT routines and providing recommendations for their implementation in EFL classrooms. It explores ways to enhance learning, improve competencies, and promote mindful critical and creative thinking. The practical value involves assessing the impact of VT routines on language acquisition and cognitive skill development. The quasi-experimental design offers insights into the benefits and challenges of integrating VT strategies into EFL teaching.

The synthesis course is expected to engage students in critical thinking, but if critical thinking is a developmental process, what are the essential underpinnings to successful critical thinking that need to be developed prior to synthesis level course work? Borrowing heavily from other faculty groups at Mason and the AAC&U VALUE rubrics for critical and creative thinking, the Critical Thinking Faculty Learning Community created a “development of critical thinking rubric” that outlines the progression of skills across a number of criteria. This rubric includes performance descriptions for the novice (expected in entry-level courses), the milestones of emerging and showing strength (typical of a synthesis course), and expert or advanced levels (more likely to be found in capstone courses). We will share data from the university-wide effort to assess critical thinking in synthesis courses and engage participants in a discussion of how to prepare Mason students for more advanced, sophisticated forms of critical thinking as they move through the university. It seems clear that to achieve the goals outlined for synthesis courses, students need some foundation in critical thinking from their lower division courses. In what ways can the university curriculum support these critical thinking goals? Panel members will share their experiences with cultivating critical thinking in their students at all levels of the curriculum.