Enhancing Students’ Engagement and Critical Thinking Skills in English Language Teaching: A Transformative Approach

Abstract

The transition from high school to tertiary institutions always pose challenges to students. Students struggle with engagement because of lack of critical academic literacy skills. The aim of this study was to review two Academic Literacy modules offered to Education students with the intention to bring in engagement and develop critical thinking skills amongst students. The study adopted the qualitative explorative approach where two students (one registered for HACL011/012 and one registered for HLLT021/022 modules) and two lecturers were interviewed. Students were interviewed on their perceptions towards the importance of the modules in their preparations for their academic studies and whether the tenets of social justice have been met in developing their academic reading skills. Lecturers were interviewed on their perceptions on the importance of the content in their modules. This was whether the content empowers students to develop the critical reading skills and the transformative learning needed for them to be fully engaged in their academic studies. The study found that although the two modules aimed at empowering students with critical thinking skills, they run short because the level 1 module is fused in within the computer literacy module. The critical thinking skills’ aspects of the module are far less towards empowering students with social justice aspects that would contribute to transformed critical thinking and reading. Lecturers’ reflections also indicated a lack of power in changing the content of the module as it will require the whole module review, which implies the review of the whole programme.