The aim of this study was to examine the effects of using inquiry-based learning on students’ critical thinking skills. A quasi-experimental design which employed time series design with single group participants was used. A total of 20 EFL undergraduate students who took advanced writing skills course were selected using comprehensive sampling method. Tests, focus group discussion, and student-reflective journal were used to gather data on the students’ critical thinking skills. The participants were given a series of three argumentative essay writing pretests both before and after the intervention, inquiry-based argumentative essay writing instruction. While the quantitative data were analyzed using One-Way Repeated Measures ANOVA, the qualitative data were analyzed through narration. The findings of the study revealed that using inquiry-based argumentative writing instruction enhances students’ critical thinking skills. Therefore, inquiry-based instruction is suggested as a means to improve students’ critical thinking skills because the method enhances students' interpretation, analysis, evaluation, inference, explanation, and self-regulation skills which are the core critical thinking skills.

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of using inquiry-based writing instruction on students’ academic writing skills. A pretest-posttest two groups quasi-experimental design was employed. Data were obtained through test, focus group discussion, and reflective journal from 62 first-year pharmacy students who were selected using comprehensive sampling. While the experimental group received the inquiry-based writing instruction, the control group learned using the conventional learning method. The quantitative data were analyzed using independent samples T-test and descriptive statistics when the qualitative data were analyzed thematically. The findings revealed that there was a statistical difference between the control and experimental groups in their academic writing performance. Hence, students who participated in the inquiry-based writing instruction improved their academic writing skills. Mainly, students who learned through inquiry-based writing instruction were able to produce essays that addressed task achievement, coherence and cohesion, lexical resource, grammatical range and accuracy. Thus, this study recommends researchers, teachers, and students to pay due attention to inquiry-based writing instruction in their academic journey.

Educational speaking technology is a digital expertise used to enhance speaking performance. This research examined the effects of using educational speaking technology tools: FORVO, YouGlish, and OALD 8th ed. to enhance students’ speaking performance. A quasi-experimental pretest-posttest two groups design was used. Test, questionnaire, interview, and teacher-log were used to gather the data from 82 first-year Information communication and Technology (IT) students selected through comprehensive sampling. The experimental group students had learned speaking skills through educational speaking technology tools while the control group students learned using the conventional method. When the quantitative data were analyzed through independent samples T-test, the qualitative data were analyzed through thematic analysis. The findings of the study uncovered that there was a statistical difference between the experimental and control group students in their speaking performance. Accordingly, the learners who had learned through educational speaking technology have enhanced their speaking performance compared to the students that learned conventionally. Predominantly, students who learned through educational speaking technology were fluent, coherent, and accurate in their speech, rich in lexical resources, used a variety of grammatical ranges, and better in pronunciation. Besides, the students’ have positive perceptions towards using educational speaking technology tools. Consequently, this study recommends researchers, teachers, and students to make the use of educational technology and to go in line with the state of the art.