Developing Critical Thinking Skill Through Reading:

Abstract

The current work endeavors to explore teachers and students’ attitudes towards reading, critical thinking skill, and more importantly, towards developing critical thinking skill through reading at the departments of letters and English Language at Guelma University. English language students are facing different obstacles that may hinder their learning process and development. One of those problems can be the lack of sufficient processing of information, which may lead to misunderstanding and misinterpreting any given material. In other words, they lack the ability to think critically. In order to carry out this research, a quantitative study has been conducted. Two different questionnaires were administered to sixty-one first year master students and twenty-seven teachers of different modules. The analysis of the two questionnaires revealed that both teachers and students are aware of the existence of critical thinking skill and stress the importance of reading. Moreover, they showed a positive attitude towards developing critical thinking skill through reading, however, the majority of students tend to ignore reading and abandon it and they are not trying to develop their critical thinking skill neither through reading nor through other tools. Following the research findings, it is recommended to raise students’ awareness about the importance of reading as well as critical thinking skill in foreign language teaching and learning. More importantly, to implement some reading programs that can help learners enhance their critical thinking skill.