The aim of this experimental study was to investigate the impact of a critical thinking based pedagogical approach on learners' retention ability of EFL vocabulary. There were two groups in the study: an experimental and a control group. The experimental group received vocabulary instruction with a critical thinking-based approach whereas the control group was taught in the conventional methods of vocabulary teaching. The treatment consisted of seven lessons delivered over 12 weeks. At the end of the treatment, the immediate post-test was administered and two weeks after the immediate post-test, the delayed post-test was administered. The resulting data was subjected to descriptive and inferential statistical analysis using SPSS software. The results showed that the experimental group outperformed the control group in their vocabulary retention. Based on these results, the researchers concluded that the adopted critical thinking-oriented language instruction to EFL vocabulary has a positive effect on vocabulary retention, with implications for policy-makers, teacher trainers and teachers.
This research aimed to explore students’ views towards the use of a critical thinking pedagogical model for vocabulary instruction. From this end, a questionnaire was utilized to collect both quantitative and qualitative data to investigate the students’ opinions about such an educational experience. Data analysis revealed that the meaningful and purposeful critical thinking vocabulary tasks triggered learners’ motivation while engaging their higher cognitive abilities in solving the tasks and enabling them to reflect on their topics based on their personal and life experiences. This challenging process led learners to have more opportunities for practicing ‘elaborative rehearsal’, and as a result, to process the targeted vocabulary deeper. This created a stronger association with the taught vocabulary, which ultimately enabled them to be encoded in the learners’ long-term memory. Based on these findings, the authors recommend that teachers, teacher educators, and curriculum designers should draw upon the findings of these studies and consider the advisability of embedding critical thinking-based teaching methods across all strata of the EFL teaching system: policy documents, curricula, teacher training courses and the language classrooms.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.