The Importance of Critical Thinking in EFL Essay Writing (Argumentative, Problem-Solution, Critical Analysis):

Abstract

The present research attempts to explore teachers’ and learners attitudes and perception towards the importance of critical thinking in essay writing. It aims at improving lear ners’ essay writing through promoting critical thinking among them. Furthermore, this study uses a mixture of methods: Quantitative descriptive method by means of students’ questionnaire, and qualitative descriptive one via teachers’ interview. The sample of this research consists of fifty-six (56 out of 65) Master One students and three (3) Master one teachers at the department of English, 8 May 1945 University-Guelma. The obtained results from both tools confirm the research hypothesis, which implies that students perceive critical thinking as important and display a tendency to use it whenever they write argumentative, problem -solution, and critical analysis essays. Hence, it calls for the integration of critical thinking implicitly or explicitly at the department of English.