Using Critical Thinking for L2 Reading Instruction in Iran

Abstract

Recent researches in teaching L reading comprehension has focused on cognitive and metacognative strategies that can increase students'comprehension and learning of English as a foreign language from written texts. However, the insights from these works have had limited impact on reading comprehension ability of EFL learners. The current ESL reading courses continue to rely on such standard activities as comprehension and skill-building exercises. Strategies training may receive little attention or be taught generically. This article urges English for general purposes (EGP) programs to devise more holistic strategy-oriented approaches for reading instructions. This study was therefore conducted a) to investigate the differences between the traditional method and the critical thinking strategies of teaching reading comprehension passages to Iranian EFL students; b) to explore the differences between male and females' critical thinking abilities that have a crucial impact on their reading comprehension in Iran's EFL environments; c) to find out the differences between the Iranian EFL male and female students' critical thinking abilities in reading comprehension in two proficiency levels of low and high. To fulfill the purpose of the study, 2 male and female Iranian EFL students majoring in English translation were selected from Islamic Azad universities, Ayatollah Amoli, Ghaemeshahr, and Sari branches. Then the subjects were screened into two proficiency levels based on the TOEFL tests. Each proficiency group was divided into critical and non-critical group. Each of the critical and non-critical group was divided into two male and female groups. Statistical analyses revealed that: 1) critical thinking strategies training affects EFL learners' reading comprehension performance. 2) the effect of critical thinking training does not vary across different language proficiency levels. 3) the effect of critical thinking training dose not vary for male and female students. The acquired conclusions indicate that substantial and fundamental changes are indispensable in language teaching and language environments, in general, and opening new doors to critical thinking strategies of reading passages is taken for granted, in particular.