المحترف
Volume 8, Numéro 1, Pages 486-508
2021-06-10

Using Short Stories To Enhance Efl Students’ Critical Thinking

Authors : Boumediene Houda .

Abstract

Critical Thinking is one of the key goals of education. Thus, it should receive more devotion and all of its thinking is one of its possible effects on language learning should be explored. Moreover, educators have long been interested in the significance of critical thinking skills as an outcome of students learning. Reading is the most important skill which humans should acquire, as it is the means of enjoyment and pleasure, and the mother of all skills. The current study focuses on the effectiveness of reading the literary genre of short stories in fostering critical thinking skills of 50 Second Year EFL Students at the Department of English – University of Sidi Bel Abbes-Algeria. The data were collected through Pre-Post Tests based on a questionnaire and a lesson about critical thinking skills as a remedy. Students were asked to answer questions to reveal their reading comprehension strategies. The findings of the study showed that reading short stories has a significant role in enhancing critical thinking skills. Also, the study came up with a fact that short stories can promote critical thinking skills in the EFL Students’ behavior. Therefore, short stories’ reading has to be implemented within the Algerian Educational Curriculum.

Keywords

Critical thinking ; EFL Students ; reading comprehension strategies ; reading literary works ; short stories