English Language Teachers’ Attitudes Towards Critical Thinking within Moroccan High Schools

Youssouf Laabidi

doi:10.48185/tts.v2i2.256

Abstract

This study addresses the restricted attention of critical thinking in the Teaching of English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) in Moroccan high schools, which is one of the new issues investigated in recent times. Many students could not think critically since their instructors could not implement critical thinking into their instructional practices every day. The primary bjective of this inquiry is to examine teachers’ attitude towards the use of critical thinking in the classroom. In this paper, the questionnaire was used to address only English language high school teachers. Descriptive statistical analysis of means, standard deviations, and percentages were used. The results showed that teachers held a positive attitude towards the use of critical thinking in the classroom. Therefore, they need not hesitate to introduce it in their teaching. Our findings strongly indicate that having an understanding of what really happened in the classroom will surely help shape the development of critical thinking in education. This suggests that further study could be carried to determine teachers’ level of use of critical thinking in Moroccan high schools.

Highlights

Most instructors in all parts of the world used textbooks as their primary resource, and the major objective in several classrooms was making sure that learners memorized facts (Zohar & Dori, 2003)
This result is in compliance with the findings of Stapleton (2011) who conducted a survey on attitudes toward critical thinking among Hong Kong secondary school instructors
Responses were obtained from 423 high school teachers, who responded to the research survey

Summary

Introduction

Most instructors in all parts of the world used textbooks as their primary resource, and the major objective in several classrooms was making sure that learners memorized facts (Zohar & Dori, 2003). Russell (1956) noted that “critical thinking is the process of examining concrete verbal materials in the light of related objective evidence, comparing the object or statement with some norm or standard, and concluding or acting upon the judgement made” (p.301). Russell provided another definition of critical thinking. He stated that critical thinking “is the process of evaluation or categorization in terms of some previously accepted standards” This seems to involve attitude, plus knowledge of facts, plus some thinking skills (Russell,1960)

Methods

Discussion

Conclusion