The Effect of Critical Thinking-Based Instructions on Iranian EFL Learners' Oral Communicative Strategies

The quality of our thought specifies the quality of our life and what we produce, make, or build. Human thinking is the capacity we can use to learn. Thus, we need to teach our students how to think. In this light, this study explored the effect of using critical thinking-based (CT-based) instruction on the oral communicative strategies of Iranian EFL learners and compared the effectiveness of such instructions with a noncritical thinking-based (non-CT based) instruction. The participants were 84 intermediate EFL learners assigned to two groups of experimental and control group, each consisting of 42 female learners. The experimental group went under CT-based instruction while the control group received non-CT based instructions. A pretest-posttest design was used. The particpants took two questionnaires, one as pretest and the other as posttest to see how their oral communication strategies have developed. Analyses of covariance (ANCOVA) were used to compare the effects of two types of instructions on the participants' communicative strategies (coping with speaking and listening problems). Results revealed that both CT and non-CT thinking instructions had a positive impact on the participants' oral communication strategies, including coping with speaking and listening problems, but the effect of CT instruction was significantly greater. In addition, the strategies of coping with listening problems in the experimental group improved more significanly .Also, it was found that making prediction was very effective for developing the EFL learners' oral communication. The findings imply that CT-based instruction should be cherished more in EFL learning to foster oral communicative strategies.

کلیدواژه ها:

critical thinking-based instruction ، non-critical thinking ، oral communicative strategies ، EFL learners