Impact of Teaching Critical Thinking Tasks for Enhancing Paragraph Writing Performance of EFL Learners

Abstract

Critical thinking tasks can be useful in teaching and learning foreign or second languages, but they can be something innovative for some learning and teaching contexts. Therefore, the aim of this study is to explore how EFL learners behave toward these tasks. 42 non-English majors were recruited for the study. They were divided into two groups: experimental and control. Only the experimental group benefited from the application of critical thinking tasks to writing paragraphs. Both groups were engaged in learning how to write paragraphs in English for 15 weeks. The study mainly employed the pretest, posttest, the questionnaire and six treatment lesson plans to collect data. The result revealed that critical thinking tasks empowered these EFL learners in their paragraph writing. The experimental group had more significant enhancement. The result obtained from the questionnaire also indicated that most of the EFL learners had a positive attitude toward the use of critical thinking tasks supporting their paragraph writing. They also showed their satisfaction when they applied critical thinking tasks in their writing classes. Some implications were given for both language teachers and EFL students about the importance of applying critical thinking tasks to developing and teaching writing. Some recommendations for further research in the future were also discussed.