developing critical thinking in efl classes

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40 Activities For Developing Critical Thinking in EFL Classes

In this article, I’m going to tackle critical thinking; what it is, what it involves, and some practical activities to develop it in EFL classes.

Critical thinking is one of the main purposes of education. Teachers should prepare their students to think critically from the first day of school. Critical thinking helps students to lead successful, fulfilling lives and become engaged citizens.

What Is Meant By Critical Thinking?

In today’s world, critical thinking is:

• The ability to think about one’s thinking to recognize and improve it.
• The process of applying, analyzing, constructing and evaluating information.
• Making reasoned judgments using certain criteria to judge the quality of something.

What Critical Thinking Involves?

• Asking questions,
• Defining a problem,
• Examining evidence,
• Analyzing assumptions and biases,
• Avoiding emotional reasoning,
• Avoiding oversimplification,
• Considering all interpretations,
• Using higher level thinking skills; analyzing, evaluating and
• Reaching creative solutions for problems.

Why Teach Critical Thinking?

Teachers should focus mainly to develop their students’ critical thinking to help them:  

• Be active receptors of the massive information that they receive nowadays.
• Solve the complex problems that they face every day.
• Make sound decisions about personal and civic affairs.

The Main Teaching Strategies To Develop Critical Thinking

• Using ongoing classroom assessment.
• Putting students in group learning situations to get continuous support and feedback from other students.
• Presenting case studies to the class without a conclusion and using discussion and debate methods.
• Using critical questions.
• Using dialogues written or oral and encouraging students to analyze them.
• Using comparisons to show the pros and cons of two things.

Example #1 of a Critical Thinking Activity

Using debates

Letter x Email

Broom x Vacuum cleaner

Telephone (landline) x Cell phone

Oven x Microwave

Sponge and soap x Dishwasher

Candle x Bulb

Book x Kindle

1. Ask the class who, in their own opinion, wins and why?

2. Ask students to pretend to be the item that they choose, try to list its advantages, and debate them with the other student.

3. Ask students to act out what they prepared in front of the class.

4.  Ask the class to listen and take notes.

Example #2 of a Critical Thinking Activity

Using short stories

Ask students to read the following short story and answer the questions below:

Just before Christmas my father took me skiing at Mount Baker. He’d had to fight for the privilege of my company, because my mother was still angry with him for sneaking me into a nightclub during his last visit, to see Thelonious Monk.

• Write an introduction to this short story.
• Write the second paragraph.
• Do you think they stayed up all night in the nightclub? What did they do?
• What do you think about the father?
• Do you think the family enjoyed Christmas?
• If you were the mother, would you be angry?
• What did you learn from the story?
• Can you guess the best/worst case scenario of how the story will end?
• Why did the father take the kid to the nightclub?
• Do you think the mother wanted to go to the nightclub?
• Do you like such a father?
• Do you think the dad lives with the family?
• What are the feelings of the kid?
• Do you think the kid has siblings?
• Did the kid solve the problem with his mother?
• What would you do if you were in his/her shoes?
• How old is he or she?
• Where do they live? Country or town?
• Do you think the kid is good at school?
• Why did the father sneak the kid into the nightclub?
• Do you think the mother was right when she got angry?
• What do you think of the dad?
• Should the kid apologize to the mother and how?
• Does the father accompany his kid often or rarely?
• What do you think happened before Christmas?
• Why did the father not take the mother along? …. etc.

When asking students such critical thinking questions, the teacher should:

• Keep the discussion focused.
• Keep the discussion reasonable.
• Stimulate the discussion with more probing questions.
• Summarize periodically what has and what has not been dealt with or resolved.
• Engage as many students as possible in the discussion.

More Examples of Activities For Developing Critical Thinking in EFL Classes

3. Write a title on the board, divide the students into groups, and they sit together and make a story (each group will have a different story and then share it with the whole class).

4. Use a short story, ask students about their opinions of the characters, then discuss with the whole class whether they agree or disagree asking why?

5. Draw objects and ask them about them (compare and contrast).

6. Write an essay on a certain topic or respond to an email.

7. Suggest a suitable title for a story.

8. Transfer information to others

9. Brainstorm ideas using a mind map.

10. Summarize a text and give opinions.

11. Ask what-if questions (what if you were Oliver twist/Cinderella).

12. Ask students to complete a sentence.

13. Ask about the moral of a story.

14. Give students a problem related to their environment and ask them to do research about it and give some creative solutions for it.

15. Ask open-ended questions; questions that have many possible answers (e.g. should we spend more money developing earth or exploring space?). Divide the class into groups, each thinks of answers and then shares them.

16. Give a situation and encourage students (in groups) to analyze, evaluate, and make judgments.

17. Ask students to make an end to a story.

18. Ask students to criticize a certain situation.

19. List the advantages and disadvantages of a topic.

20. Introduce some situations using (what would you do in the following situation? what if we do not have …., what would happen if …?

21. Ask students: which is different: milk, water, soda, or juice? Why? Which one is better (in pairs and students pick different sides)

22. Imagine you are the president, the mayor, a leader, a doctor etc… What decisions would you take first?

Reading Activities

Let’s brainstorm some ideas of how to promote critical thinking after reading a story, e.g. “Cinderella”.

23. Analyze characters: Do you like “Character”? Why?

24. Use what-if questions: What if Cinderella was ugly?

25. Introduce or remove a character then ask for the impact on the storyline.

26. Ask for another ending for the story.

27. Ask for their thoughts about what’s after the ending.

28. Change the setting and ask for the results.

29. Ask students to watch the movie after reading the story and then compare the characters and the storyline!

Speaking activities

30. Ask students to look at a certain picture and describe their feelings about it.

31. Ask students to compare things.

32. Introduce a problem and ask students to give as many solutions as possible for it.

33. Ask students to gather information from conflicting resources.

34. Ask controversial questions.

35. Encourage Role Plays.

36. Ask students about their priority: education/health/entertainment and why?

Listening activities

37. Prediction.

38. Making inferences.

39. Drawing conclusions.

40. Differentiating between facts and opinions.

Writing Activities

41. Writing blurbs to pictures or ads … etc.

42. Writing Commentaries.

43. Responding to emails, letters or SMS.

For setting students up for success in critical thinking activities teachers need to:

• Brainstorm enough information before asking students to carry out a certain task.
• Encourage them to participate.
• Provide them with help and guidance (when needed).
• Assure them that there are no “wrong answers”.
• Accept all answers and points of view.
• Appreciate their efforts.
• Praise their trials.
• Teach them critical thinking skills!

Here are some critical thinking skills that students need to learn:

• Thinking outside the box.
• Asking questions and then questioning answers.
• Analyzing the reading or the listening text.
• Logically addressing an issue.
• Supporting their stance with evidence.
• Respectfully refuting others’ opinions.
• Evaluating the truth of a claim or argument.

Adapted from U.S. Department of State English Language Programs – Samar Aal

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Effective and practical critical thinking-enhanced EFL instruction

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Ya-Ting C. Yang, Jeffrey Gamble, Effective and practical critical thinking-enhanced EFL instruction, ELT Journal , Volume 67, Issue 4, October 2013, Pages 398–412, https://doi.org/10.1093/elt/cct038

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With globalization and the spread of English, EFL instruction is ever more important. In addition to a new language, learners are also exposed to different cultures and ways of thinking. Thus, EFL classrooms provide ideal contexts for exploring important critical thinking (CT) skills. Based on a literature review, theory-based learning activities were designed for targeting language learning, CT development, and academic achievement. An experimental design was used with participants from two freshman EFL classes. While Experimental group learners engaged in CT-enhanced activities such as debates and peer critiques, Control group learners engaged in non-CT-enhanced EFL activities such as group presentations and process writing, effective but without an emphasis on CT. Experimental group learners demonstrated a significant improvement in English proficiency in comparison to the Control group. Furthermore, superior CT and academic achievement were observed for the Experimental group in a content-based exam. Implications for designing CT-enhanced EFL activities that boost English proficiency and CT are discussed.

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Developing Critical Thinking in EFL Classes An Infusion Approach

• Author(s) Yue Lin
• Publisher Springer

Print ISBN 9789811077838, 9811077835

Etext isbn 9789811077845, 9811077843.

• Copyright 2018
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Developing Critical Thinking in EFL Classes: An Infusion Approach is written by Yue Lin and published by Springer. The Digital and eTextbook ISBNs for Developing Critical Thinking in EFL Classes are 9789811077845, 9811077843 and the print ISBNs are 9789811077838, 9811077835. Save up to 80% versus print by going digital with VitalSource.

Infusing Critical Thinking into EFL Classes

• First Online: 10 February 2018

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• Yue Lin 2  

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In the previous chapter the results of the case study were presented and illustrated. Overall, the results indicated that the infusion lessons helped the students to develop critical thinking dispositions and improved their performance in thinking critically. The teaching of critical thinking contributed to an improvement in their overall writing proficiency, grammatical complexity and fluency. Although in the present study it was found that the accuracy of their writing decreased slightly, this indicates the effectiveness of the students’ internalisation of linguistic forms of the target language. Moreover, the infusion lessons were perceived to be enjoyable and helpful by the majority of students, indicating their positive attitudes and adaptation to this new teaching method. These findings point to the effectiveness and applicability of infusion lessons in Chinese high school English classes, indicating the possibility and value of teaching critical thinking in Asian L2 classrooms and at high school level. In this chapter, the findings of the study are discussed in the light of the relevant literature , explaining why and how infusion lessons can have a positive impact on students’ thinking, learning and attitudes. Firstly, the context created by the critical thinking tasks is described, in order to portray how the characteristics of the subject class were taken advantage of in order to teach critical thinking in the infusion lessons. The discussion then moves to demonstrating how the infusion lessons succeeded in achieving a mutual reinforcement between the students’ critical thinking and their learning of English; this is followed by a description of the effects of the infusion lessons on the students’ thinking, on their writing in English and on their attitudes and perceptions . Finally, the implications of the study are presented.

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Lin, Y. (2018). Infusing Critical Thinking into EFL Classes. In: Developing Critical Thinking in EFL Classes. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-7784-5_10

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Developing critical perspectives among efl learners: insights from language educators.

1. Introduction

2. background of the study.

“The label “Critical Language Awareness” (CLA) has been applied both to the understanding of how language is imbued with social meaning and power relations, as well as to pedagogical approaches designed to promote that understanding among students. As part of their learning about how language works, CLA-based pedagogies encourage students to question taken-for-granted assumptions about language and to analyze how such assumptions are tied to inequality and injustice, with the ultimate goal of promoting positive social change” (p. 345)

3. CDA and EFL Teaching

5. participants, 6. results and discussion, 7. conclusions, institutional review board statement, informed consent statement, data availability statement, conflicts of interest.

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Hamdi, S.A. Developing Critical Perspectives among EFL Learners: Insights from Language Educators. Educ. Sci. 2023 , 13 , 81. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci13010081

Hamdi SA. Developing Critical Perspectives among EFL Learners: Insights from Language Educators. Education Sciences . 2023; 13(1):81. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci13010081

Hamdi, Sami Abdullah. 2023. "Developing Critical Perspectives among EFL Learners: Insights from Language Educators" Education Sciences 13, no. 1: 81. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci13010081

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Developing Critical Thinking in EFL Classes: An Infusion Approach (1st ed. 2018)

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Developing Critical Thinking in EFL Classes: An Infusion Approach Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed. 2018 Edition

• ISBN-10 9811356734
• ISBN-13 978-9811356735
• Edition Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed. 2018
• Publication date January 4, 2019
• Language English
• Dimensions 6.1 x 0.49 x 9.25 inches
• Print length 213 pages
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• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Springer; Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed. 2018 edition (January 4, 2019)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 213 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9811356734
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-9811356735
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1 pounds
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.1 x 0.49 x 9.25 inches

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• DOI: 10.21608/suijer.2024.369245
• Corpus ID: 271638304

Using an Online Collaborative Learning Program Based on the ‎Cognitive Apprenticeship Model for Developing Student Teachers’ EFL Argumentative Writing and Critical Thinking Skills

• Nehal Magdy Hussein Hassan
• Published in Sohag University… 25 July 2024

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44 References

Cefr based learning approach: using literature to enhance efl students’ reading skills and critical thinking skills, metacognitive and critical thinking practices in developing efl students’ argumentative writing skills, the effects of a critical thinking oriented instructional pattern in a tertiary efl argumentative writing course, promoting and assessing efl college students' critical thinking skills through argumentative essay writing, the impact of pragmatic tasks on efl prospective teachers' critical thinking skills, exploring students’ critical thinking skills and their performance in writing argumentative essay, using the cognitive apprenticeship model with a chat tool to enhance online collaborative learning, teachers’ perspectives: developing undergraduate efl learners’ critical thinking skills, the effects of a cognitive apprenticeship model on the argumentative texts of efl learners, the use of cognitive apprenticeship in the learning and teaching of improvisation: teacher and student perspectives, related papers.

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Mojgan Rashtchi TEFL Department, Faculty of Foreign Languages, North Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Iran

Mojgan Rashtchi is an associate professor of Applied Linguistics in the faculty of Foreign Languages of Islamic Azad University, North Tehran Branch. She has taught a variety of subjects related to English language teaching to students at different levels. She has published several articles and books and has participated in several local and international conferences. Her primary areas of interest include English language teaching methodology, theories of first and second language acquisition, teaching language skills, P4C, and research in education.

Babak Khoshnevisan University of South Florida, USA

Babak Khoshnevisan has a PhD in the Technology in Education and Second Language Acquisition (TESLA) Program from the University of South Florida (USF). He is a teacher educator of ESOL courses at USF. His research interests include teacher education, idiomaticity, augmented reality (AR), virtual reality, and computer-assisted language learning.

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LESSONS FROM CRITICAL THINKING: HOW TO PROMOTE THINKING SKILLS IN EFL WRITING CLASSES

Critical thinking as an issue with on-going importance has an immense influence on modern education. However, it is not a natural disposition but is a potential that needs cultivation. Training individuals to become critical thinkers is not an easy task, but by adopting appropriate strategies and classroom practices, it is attainable. The present article aimed to show how English writing classes in EFL settings could facilitate the practice of critical thinking skills. This paper suggests that critical thinking can be implemented as a classroom practice in writing courses by using several tasks that integrate writing and thinking skills. The article starts with an introduction to the definitions of critical thinking. Then, it underlines the classroom procedures, which can be implemented by teachers. Following this, some sample tasks and writing topics are proposed to help teachers employ critical thinking practices in their classes.

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Rashtchi, M., Porkar, R., & Ghazi Mir Saeed, F. (2019). Product-based, process-based, and genre-based instructions in expository writing: Focusing on EFL learners’ performance and strategy use. European Journal of Education Studies, 6(6), 115-136. http://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3427842

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Prairie arts center launches new season of youth programming.

Thursday, August 8, 2024

Media Contact: Meghan Brasuell | Prairie Arts Center General Manager | 405-744-1535 | [email protected]

The Prairie Arts Center  will kick off its fall youth programming on Aug. 27 with the first Art Academy class of the 2024-25 academic year.

Art Academy is an after-school course designed for students who wish to explore and grow their artistic aptitude. Students learn and practice foundational skills in the visual arts and are exposed to various 2D and 3D mediums. Art Academy students also develop strong visual literacy and critical thinking skills by viewing and discussing their own artwork and the artwork of others.

“I usually choose a theme for each six-week session,” said Jen Johnson, arts education coordinator at the center. “For example, for the first six-week session this fall, we will look at and be inspired by the art and cultural traditions of the American Southwest. This will include a tour of the fabulous Benjamin Harjo Jr. exhibition at the OSU Museum of Art.”

Art Academy is offered for two different age groups to address differing developmental needs. For the 6-10-year-old cohort, each class yields a final work that is shared and discussed. For the 11–14-year-old students, the focus shifts to project-based instruction emphasizing skill building.  

“For the second session, we are excited to be offering a Clay Academy for our 11-14-year-old artists,” Johnson said. “Clay Academy gives students the opportunity to have an immersive clay experience, learning the fundamentals of hand building, glazing and maybe even a little time on the wheel. They can expect to complete three projects over the six weeks.”

The center’s summer camp lineup included a clay-only camp for the same age group and was so popular that it ran an additional week to accommodate the demand.

“Kids and parents are always excited about clay opportunities, and we have a wonderful instructor, local ceramicist Missy Hitch, to head up the classes,” Johnson said.

The first session of Art Academy runs from the week of Aug. 27 through the week of Oct. 1. Students in the 6-10 age group can choose between Tuesday or Wednesday afternoons, 3:30-5 p.m. Art Academy for the 11-14 cohort is Thursdays from 4:30-6 p.m. The second session begins the week of Oct. 22 and runs through the first week of December, with one week off for Thanksgiving break.

Registration is now open for both Art Academy sessions. Find more information and registration here . For Clay Academy information, click here .