Developing Critical Thinking through EFL Textbooks: A Study at Secondary and Higher Secondary School Certificate Level in Pakistan

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Dr. Muhammad Din, et. al.

Abstract

Critical thinking is such an active process of purposeful reflection in which judgment is suspended. Critical thinking involves not only knowledge and comprehension (lower levels of learning) but also analysis, synthesis and evaluation (higher-order thinking). This study aims to know to what extent critical thinking skills are embedded and focused in EFL textbooks at secondary school certificate (SSC) and higher secondary school certificate (HSSC) level, examine the role of EFL textbooks used in Pakistan in promoting EFL learners’ critical thinking skills and know, of lower and higher order thinking, which level is better developed through EFL textbooks. To achieve these objectives of the study, the researcher has conducted this study at two levels. Firstly, the researcher has made cognitive classification of those questions which have been given at the end of every lesson of the selected EFL textbooks. Secondly, the researcher has designed four reading and writing tasks (RWT) for the participants of four classes. Every task consists of a “reading passage” and a writing task comprising six questions based on the given reading passage and consists of 20 marks. The findings of this study reveal that the least focused critical thinking skill in the EFL textbooks is that of “create” whereas “remember” and “understand” are the most focused critical thinking skills.

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