Abstract
Teaching English as a foreign language to young learners in Indonesia requires specific strategies because young learners have different characteristics compared to adults. It demands English teachers to have sufficient metacognitive knowledge to promote students’ critical thinking skills. Therefore, this research paper presents findings on teacher’s metacognitive knowledge to promote EFL young learners critical thinking. A case study was employed involving one class of fifth-grade students with one English teacher and three instruments to collect data, namely classroom observation, interview, and document analysis. The data analysis was done by referring to the theory of metacognitive knowledge and stages in promoting critical thinking in EFL classroom. The findings reveal that the teacher performed three types of metacognitive knowledge, such as person, task, and strategic knowledge. These types of knowledge determined teacher’s strategy in running the class. It was indicated from the teacher’s statement showing that metacognitive knowledge guide herself through what, why, and how to implement learning strategies and predict outcomes by considering students’ needs and characteristics. Consequently, the students were able to analyze, evaluate, compare, contrast, and construct new information from their previous knowledge and experience.Keywords: Critical thinking, EFL young learners, English language learning, Indonesian educational context, Teacher’s metacognitive knowledge
Highlights
Since children have different characteristics than adults, English teachers for young learners require specific strategies to achieve learning outcomes
Since this study analyse how the teacher used her metacognitive knowledge in teaching English to young learners to promote students’ critical thinking skills, this study could be considered as a case study design (Cresswell, 2013)
Finding and discussion Based on the data analysis results from the three research instruments, this study found that the teacher performed three types of metacognitive knowledge in teaching English to promote students’ critical thinking skills, such as person, tasks, and strategic knowledge
Summary
Since children have different characteristics than adults, English teachers for young learners require specific strategies to achieve learning outcomes. English as a foreign language (EFL) young learners’ classroom should focus on teaching language materials and improve learning strategies through students’ engagement in promoting their critical thinking and problemsolving skills (Yen & Halili , 2015). Critical thinking has been incorporated into many schools around the world, but its concept and components are not clearly defined as its popularity (Paul & Elder, 2020). It is further elaborated by Cottrell (2017) who describes critical thinking as a complicated process of careful consideration requiring a wide range of skills and attitudes. A person cannot achieve that immediately, instead, it requires complex cognitive process associated with prior knowledge and experience
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