Promoting Critical Thinking in EFL Classrooms

 

 

Mateus Yumarnamto

Yohanes Nugroho Widiyanto

 

 

 

Indonesian students tend to have difficulties in asking questions. The typical classroom in Indonesia, including English classrooms tend to be quiet in which students only do the teachers instructions and answer teachers’ questions. More active classrooms in which students develop their thinking skills are required by the 2004 Curriculum. However, many teachers still have difficulty in developing the thinking skills of the students. The traditional training they have already had focused on teaching the subject centered on the teacher. This paper offers an overview of critical thinking and how we can promote it in EFL classrooms. Traditionally, promoting critical thinking for the students relies on Bloom’s taxonomy that suggests the high order of thinking. However, more practical binary types of questions will be highlighted for teachers: (1) “Fat Questions” versus “Skinny questions”, (2) High-Consensus Questions” versus “Low Consensus Questions,” and (3) “True Questions” versus “Review questions”.

 

 

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Yumarnamto, M., & Widiyanto, Y. N. (2005, December). Promoting critical thinking in EFL classrooms. Paper  presented at the 53rd TEFLIN International conference, Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

 

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