Can Thinking be Taught? Linking Critical Thinking and Writing in an EFL Context

Abstract

While thinking critically is often perceived to be the primary purpose of reading, the question of
whether it can actually be taught in classrooms has been extensively debated. This paper bases
itself on a qualitative case study of university students completing a degree in English Language and
Literature. It explores the way in which critical thinking can be taught in EFL contexts. The paper
suggests that critical thinking is best defined as a series of skills which can be continuously worked
upon by students for whom constant revision and application of these skills is a significant way of
internalizing what has often been seen to be just an attitude or bent of mind. This skill is further
enhanced when students get an opportunity to write on the areas which have been discussed in
the class, particularly if they are of some relevance to the students’ own contexts. Based on the
open question format of Norris and Ennis (1989) and subsequent evaluation using the rubrics
of McLaughlin and Moore (2012) which take into account the critical reading component in
writing, this paper investigates the extent to which critical thinking could be enhanced through
in-class social practices such as discussions and subsequent writing. The study concludes that
continuous practice, both oral and written, provide opportunities for students to develop their
critical thinking abilities as they become more successful in incorporating nuanced and critical
ideas into their academic writings. This has implications for students’ academic and personal
achievements because, clearly, an inability to read critically will result in an inability to write
insightfully. Various strategies are then suggested to facilitate learners’ use of critical thinking skills
so that they may successfully incorporate them into their writing, both in an academic context
and as a life-long skill.

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Sandhya Rao Mehta and Rahma Al-Mahrouqi
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Can Thinking be Taught? Linking Critical Thinking and Writing in an EFL
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DOI: 10.1177/0033688214555356
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Can Thinking be Taught?
Linking Critical Thinking
and Writing in an
EFL Context
Sandhya Rao Mehta
Sultan Qaboos University, Oman
Rahma Al-Mahrouqi
Sultan Qaboos University, Oman
Abstract
While thinking critically is often perceived to be the primary purpose of reading, the question of
whether it can actually be taught in classrooms has been extensively debated. This paper bases
itself on a qualitative case study of university students completing a degree in English Language and
Literature. It explores the way in which critical thinking can be taught in EFL contexts. The paper
suggests that critical thinking is best defined as a series of skills which can be continuously worked
upon by students for whom constant revision and application of these skills is a significant way of
internalizing what has often been seen to be just an attitude or bent of mind. This skill is further
enhanced when students get an opportunity to write on the areas which have been discussed in
the class, particularly if they are of some relevance to the students’ own contexts. Based on the
open question format of Norris and Ennis (1989) and subsequent evaluation using the rubrics
of McLaughlin and Moore (2012) which take into account the critical reading component in
writing, this paper investigates the extent to which critical thinking could be enhanced through
in-class social practices such as discussions and subsequent writing. The study concludes that
continuous practice, both oral and written, provide opportunities for students to develop their
critical thinking abilities as they become more successful in incorporating nuanced and critical
ideas into their academic writings. This has implications for students’ academic and personal
achievements because, clearly, an inability to read critically will result in an inability to write
insightfully. Various strategies are then suggested to facilitate learners’ use of critical thinking skills
so that they may successfully incorporate them into their writing, both in an academic context
and as a life-long skill.
Corresponding author:
Sandhya Rao Mehta, Sultan Qaboos University, Post Box 42, Postal Code 123, Al Khod, Oman.
Email: sandhyamehta4@gmail.com
555356REL0010.1177/0033688214555356RELC JournalMehta and Al-Mahrouqi
research-article2014
Article
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2 RELC Journal
Keywords
Critical thinking, academic writing in Oman, transferring reading skills, student’s critical abilities,
EFL in Oman
Critical Thinking: An Introduction
Richard Paul and Linda Elders’s famous definition of critical thinking as being ‘the art
of thinking about your thinking while you are thinking in order to make your thinking
better: more clear, more accurate, more defensible’ (2002: 316) points to the continuing
relevance and significance surrounding critical thinking in academic study referring, as
it does, to the act of thinking as being a conscious and therefore, a teachable skill. This
is diametrically opposed to such studies as those of Atkinson (1997) and Atkinson and
Ramanathan (1999) which suggested that critical thinking was culturally (primarily
Western) determined and that many Eastern communities could not be expected to
internalize critical thinking as they had not been brought up to question authority. While
this argument has been largely disputed (Stapleton, 2002), the manner in which critical
thinking could be actually taught remains debated, particularly within EFL circles
where it is largely found that students, while struggling with the mechanics of language
formation, tend to ignore crucial critical reading skills. This is even more significant in
EFL writing for, in the transition between reading and reading-based writing, students
invariably seem to leave large gaps, unable to detect implicit assumptions in the text or
to offer insights about them, largely owing to a lack of ease with the language itself,
thus creating a situation where the language focus overtakes the focus on intelligent and
critical reading.
This paper attempts to explore the difficulty faced by EFL students in employing criti-
cal thinking skills in writing university-level literary and broadly academic pieces. Based
on a specific case study of 30 English majors at Oman’s Sultan Qaboos University, this
study investigates the extent to which students trained to read critically are then able to
transfer this skill into their writing. The study contrasts samples of student writing on a
given topic at the beginning and the end of a semester-long course on critical reading
skills. An underlying assumption is that the university English classes consist of students
with ‘reasonable’ levels of language proficiency and that, as future English teachers and
translators, the skill in question will be an intrinsic part of their professional requirement.
The critical skills of the students are evaluated using an open question format based on
Norris and Ennis (1989) and the writing which followed it was evaluated using the rubrics
of MacLaughlin and Moore (2012) which included the critical thinking component into it.
Assessment of the student writing was done by four different instructors to retain objectiv-
ity and exclude any individual variations. The study found that students were, by and
large, capable of approaching a text from a critical perspective and identify key compo-
nents of audience, tone and individual voice. Yet, when confronted with the task of writing
on a similar theme, the writing showed levels which were more akin to areas of definition
and description rather than analysis and evaluation, often identified as key features of
academic writing (Condon and Kelly-Riley, 2004; Mulnix, 2010; Fahim and Pezeshki,
2012). Further interviews with the four instructors identify some ways in which critical
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Mehta and Al-Mahrouqi 3
reading skills could be more successfully incorporated in the writing of these EFL stu-
dents, thus de-linking them from the cultural debate on whether non-Western students are
capable of critical thinking, which has very often framed this discussion.
Defining the Scope of Critical Thinking and Reading
While much research in critical thinking has asserted that it should be re-viewed as a
criterion for evaluation, given the background of many L2 learning cultures which may
emphasize acquiescence over questioning, subsequent studies have gone a long way in
asserting that critical thinking skills are differently expressed in some cultures, rather
than being non-existent (McKinley, 2013). To a large extent, this confrontation is framed
around the way in which critical thinking is defined as consisting of the ability to retain
a personal voice (Barnawi, 2011) and have individual opinions, rather than the ability to
understand implications, the target audience or the implicit argument of a text. Seen as a
philosophical attitude (Sternberg, 1986) or as a ‘mindless application of a set of logical
principles’ (Mulnix, 2010: 465), critical thinking has often been viewed as a bent of mind
or a syllogism, removed from its context, making it difficult to assess the extent to which
it has actually been acquired by learners. Further problematized by EFL learners who are
struggling with the language, critical thinking often remains, if erroneously, a secondary
goal in the second language classroom. Equally relevant is the evaluation of critical
thinking as an outcome of reading, as the various tests introduced and conducted in
American universities show (such as the California Critical Thinking Test, the Cornell
Thinking Tests and the GMAT Critical Thinking Component). Most of these tests owe
much to the Watson-Glaser Approach to critical thinking which identifies five important
levels: inferencing, recognition of assumptions, making deductions, interpreting, and
evaluating arguments (quoted in Cavdar and Doe, 2012: 298). This is directly related to
Bloom’s Taxonomy of cognitive domain which includes knowledge, comprehension,
application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation. Krathwohl’s 2002 re-working of Bloom’s
Taxonomy, even if altered in some detail, retains much of the earlier focus on the process
of learning. Their new stages include instructions to remember, understand, apply, ana-
lyze, evaluate and create (Krathwohl, 2002), all of which imply an essentially upward
movement in terms of the learning curve.
The relation of this structured understanding of the learning process to critical think-
ing becomes immediately clear when the process of reading among students is closely
observed. Smith (1990) outlined the way in which the debate on critical thinking in a
classroom situation centered largely around two schools of thought: that of Thomas
Newkirk (1989) who argued for an open, unstructured thinking process to encourage
critical thought, and that of Lehman and Hayes (1985) whose approach was more struc-
tured and organized. According to Smith, this new approach facilitated the following
process in reading:
1. Helping students with what they already know of a topic
2. Recognizing biases in a given text
3. Getting students to confront these biases with open-ended questions and
discussions
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4 RELC Journal
4. Guiding students with additional readings
5. Discussing validity of these readings which are the new sources
6. Comparing the sources for positions and arguments
7. Helping students to see that there are no final answers (Smith, 1990: 352-55)
In an analysis of the various definitions of critical thinking, Fisher (2005) states that what
is most important is to ensure that ‘these skills are transferable; i.e. if students learn gen-
eral thinking skills in one context they will be able to (and actually will) apply them to
many other contexts, provided the teaching specifically aims at such transfer’ (2005: 5).
An immediate transfer of critical thinking skills, and perhaps an important way of retain-
ing and evaluating it is to write about it. Much research (Wade, 1995; Condon and Kelly-
Riley, 2004; Benesch, 2001; Chaffee, 2014) has explored the way in which writing is the
most important strategy which would help to make the transformation from declarative
to procedural knowledge and make critical thinking a life skill. This transformation,
however, cannot be achieved without sufficient training in the writing classroom.
Transferring Critical Thinking to Writing
Once a process of critical thinking has been completed, it is necessary that it should be
transferred into a written form, for ‘writing has often been seen to be a far more re-
enforcing skill compared to oral discussions’ (Wade, 1995: 25). Wade goes on to show
that, in a classroom situation, oral discussion of what has been covered does not neces-
sarily guarantee retention or analysis because discussions are not self-reflexive enough.
What has been said cannot be taken back and this effectively silences a portion of the
class which has not been able to participate in the discussion for reasons of time, personal
choice or other classroom constrictions (Wade, 1995: 24). This is also re-asserted in
other studies on classroom gender dynamics (Clinchy, 2000), where female students are
often seen to react initially with silence and thus need another platform for the articula-
tion of their thoughts.
Writing is thus one of the most effective ways in which critical readings might be
remembered, understood and analyzed, for:
The reflective mind improves its thinking by thinking (reflectively) about it. Likewise, it
improves its writing by thinking (reflectively) about writing. It moves back and forth between
writing and thinking about how it is writing (Paul and Elder, 2008: 40).
Writing which is not based on critical reading might well be merely personal and exist
without either context or wider purpose. It may include ‘prejudices, biases, myths and
stereotypes’ (Paul and Elder, 2008: 40). What is crucial, therefore, is the need to ensure
that critical reading and thinking skills are incorporated into the process of writing in a
classroom context. This will mean that learning is being effectively utilized and applied.
Candon and Kelly-Riley (2000), in a study on how students are taught to write, say that
students may begin to write spontaneously but then immediately realize that they have to
first think about it before putting ink on paper. He relates this uncritical way of writing
to the requirements of classroom contexts, where most faculty, according to him, see that
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Mehta and Al-Mahrouqi 5
students are writing for information and their teachers were satisfied with students voic-
ing information without much analysis. This is further reflected in other studies such as
that by Carol Booth Olson (1984) on her observation of school tests in America. Very
often, she notes, questions in tests use words such as ‘analyze’, ‘discuss’ and ‘elaborate’
without students having had any training on how such strategies might actually work
(Olson, 1984: 28-31). Carroll, Keniston and Penden (2008) use a similar model in their
study of undergraduate students. Using Perry’s (1970) ideas, they follow students’ stages
of development from what they call the ‘Dualist’ approach of viewing a text in black-
and-white to where they are able to understand others’ views. Finally, there is the ‘rela-
tivism stage’, where students not only have their own view but now also have an
awareness of others’ views together with an understanding of the complexity of a given
area of interest. Training in writing, particularly in academic writing, which should nec-
essarily be preceded by critical reading and thought, is an activity to which insufficient
attention has been given, on the assumption that students who have reached the writing
stage have naturally developed other skills such as synthesis and analysis.
Using the time-tested Socratic method of critical enquiry, coupled with Bloom’s hier-
archical taxonomy of learning, certain assumptions about writing can thus be established.
Hence, Wade’s (1995) listing of the various stages in which writing is learnt includes:
1. Asking questions
2. Defining the problem
3. Examining evidence
4. Analyzing assumptions
5. Avoiding emotional/personal reactions
6. Avoiding simplification
7. Considering alternate assumptions
8. Tolerating uncertainty (Wade, 1995: 25)
Olson’s (1984) reference to Fredrick and Dominic’s (1981) discussion on how cognitive
psychology allows for an understanding of the writing process is relevant in this con-
text. They mention the knowledge we have, the language skills we have, our audience,
our purpose in writing and the context in which the writing is taking place. From a writ-
ing perspective, however, this issue is further problematized as it is not clear how much
these critical skills have been used in the reading of the text and subsequent writing
based on the readings. To a large extent, the evaluation of writing remains a contentious
issue with ESL studies such as those of Helms-Park and Stapleton (2003) countering
Elbow’s (1981) notion that voice was one of the most important criteria in evaluating
student writing and McLaughlin and Moore (2012) suggesting that very often, a well
written and organized piece of work is considered average for not including an original
and new idea:
Without open-minded thinking as a basis of approaching the writing task – the thinking that
prompts the writer to consider alternative approaches and possible outcomes – the writer may
not achieve the level of reasoning that we expect in freshman writing. This thoughtful, fair-
minded approach with its resulting careful reasoning, often expressed in a clear but neutral
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6 RELC Journal
tone, may well be one of the distinguishing features of “college-level” thinking and writing
(McLaughlin and Moore, 2012: 158).
Given the diverse requirements in student writing assignments, the evaluation rubric
would necessarily be challenging, particularly if the intent is also to identify elements of
critical thought in the student essay. Thus, a very specific study would be required to be
able to identify the extent to which students who had been previously trained in critical
thinking and application would then be able to utilize those skills in a writing project
when given sufficient input in terms of group discussions and brainstorming sessions.
Methodology
The research sample for this study consisted of 30 undergraduates who were both Arts
as well as Education English majors, i.e., those following an Arts (English) program
and those who were training to be English language teachers. The study was conducted
in the College of Arts of Sultan Qaboos University, a national university into which
students from different parts of Oman are selected based on their high school perfor-
mance. These students had already undergone at least two semesters of foundation
courses in reading, writing and speaking, having entered the course with a minimum
Band of 6 (the equivalent of point 5 in IELTS or 500 in TOEFL). In addition, these
students had completed, or were registered for a course in critical reading. All students
were given copies of the selected texts which included short (1 paragraph) writings on
tourism. These readings were taken from their prescribed textbook, Bailey’s Academic
Writing: A Handbook for International Students. The texts showed multiple approaches
to the idea of tourism and the primary task was for students to identify relevant, relia-
ble sources for further writing. The four paragraphs which were presented included a
newspaper report, a piece of description from a travel brochure, a report on the per-
centages of tourists around the world and a reflective piece on a personal holiday in
Thailand. The critical reading texts were given to students of an academic writing class
after two weeks of classes in which their previous reading and writing skill courses
were discussed and revised. The students also wrote a preliminary, reflective essay on
what academic writing meant to them and what they thought they would get from this
particular course. This was a warm up exercise in which students got to write following
a long break over the summer and were given an unrecorded mark which was not
added to the final course mark. This gave students a chance to understand the evalua-
tion of the instructor as well, based on a discussion of the paper which was returned to
the students. The students’ preliminary task was to answer the questions which accom-
panied the text. This was based on the notion of the open ended questions which were
seen to be reliable sources of information with sufficient accuracy regarding critical
thinking skills. Students were made to identify each form of writing and place it in a
relevant genre. Further questions explored their familiarity with author intention,
choice of language, nature of publication as well as the tone of the piece. Each para-
graph was followed by similar questions which targeted their critical thinking abilities.
These questions were given as homework without much previous discussion in order
to gauge students’ existing skills.
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Mehta and Al-Mahrouqi 7
Results of the Critical Thinking Assignment
The texts on tourism were chosen as they were outside the areas of education and human-
ities which were the specializations of the class. Thus, all the students were equally dis-
tanced from the topic and it could be approached from an objective point of view. The
specific reading chosen for an assignment was from a chapter entitled ‘Reading: Finding
Suitable Sources’. This chapter consisted of four short (100-150 word) paragraphs on the
topic of ‘Tourism Marketing’. Each reading represented different genres such as a travel
blog, a newspaper article, a student writing sample and an extended, formal writing with
references. Students were given questions at the end of these readings to better evaluate
the texts as sources for writing an academic essay. Following the open-ended format,
questions which were asked included:
1. What does the writer of the travel blog want to convey?
2. Who do you think reading 4 (the extended academic paragraph) is written for?
3. What is the focus of the writer of reading 1 (a newspaper article)?
4. Describe the tone of all the readings as being formal/informal, ironic/sarcastic, or
reflective/academic.
All these questions were given to students to answer in the class. The intention was to
gauge the extent to which these students could deconstruct the purpose, point of view,
overt and covert agendas as well as conviction levels of the given texts. Some of the
answers given by the students are given below. The responses given below are repre-
sentative of all the students:
1. What does the writer of the travel blog want to convey?:
‘The writer wants to convey that Thailand is a beautiful place’; ‘The writer wants to show how
he went to Thailand’ and ‘The writer shows all the beautiful places in Thailand’.
2. Who do you think reading 4 (the extended academic paragraph) is written for?:
‘It is written for a journal’; ‘It is written for someone like the writer himself’; ‘It is written in a
somewhat complicated way, like for a course’; ‘It is written for an educated person’.
3. What is the focus of the writer of reading 1 (a newspaper article)?:
‘To show why tourism marketing is important’; ‘the focus of the writer of reading 1 is to show
how consumer behaviour is important’; ‘To show why consumer behaviour should be studied’;
‘To show how to do tourism marketing’.
4. Describe the tone of all the readings as being formal/informal, ironic/sarcastic, or
reflective/academic:
‘1 and 4 are academic, 2 and 3 are informal’; ‘2 and 3 are reflective’; ‘1, 3 and 4 are academic
and 2 is reflective’; ‘No paragraph is sarcastic or ironic’; ‘Only 2 is informal’.
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8 RELC Journal
Using the format of Ennis (1993) of allowing for open-ended questions to gauge the
critical reading abilities of the students, it was found that 90% of the students were able
to answer the questions regarding the texts which were available in their books accu-
rately in terms of identifying tone, distinguishing the personal from the academic narra-
tive, identifying the targeted readership as well as make connections between two or
more elements in the writing, such as the link between understanding consumer psychol-
ogy and marketing tourism. Once the readings were divided into small, manageable
pieces which did not intimidate the students for being complex in language and ideas,
they were able to answer specific questions regarding the purpose, scope, role as well as
the possible contexts of each one of the readings on tourism which they confronted.
In-class discussions regarding these questions further enabled those who had doubts
about certain varieties (such as the difference between the language of the newspaper
article and an academic text) to distinguish between them.
Results of the Academic Writing Assignment
In continuation of this preliminary assignment of reading short texts on tourism, students
were then asked to come prepared in the next class to write an essay of approximately 500
words on the general area of tourism. Two longer articles were given to them as additional
readings and another class was spent preparing them for the writing assignment by giving
them tips on taking notes and summarizing skills. The students were permitted to bring
these notes into class for the writing assignment. On the day of the test, a question was
written on the board and students were given an hour and a half to complete a 500 word
essay. The topic for the assignment was ‘Although tourism is an economic activity, it can
also be seen that tourism is useful to understand the cultures of both, the host country as
well as that of the visitors. Discuss this with particular reference to Oman’. The intention
of this assignment was to allow students to explore the macro picture of tourism which
had already been discussed over two classes using different perspectives but this time with
the specific focus of culture. In particular, students were asked to explore how tourism
encouraged the understanding of both cultures, those of the host nation as well as those of
the variety of countries from where the tourists came. As Oman is officially hailed as a
tourist destination and students admitted to meeting tourists frequently on the streets and
in the markets, this topic was seen to be an effective way of confronting an area with
which they were familiar but may not have explored extensively. As this was still a pre-
liminary writing assignment where students had not been introduced to the APA format
and other writing technicalities, the essays were meant to only have an underlined thesis
statement, a title, an introduction and conclusion as well as a few paragraphs in support of
the main argument. These essays were then read and graded individually by three different
instructors to ensure validity. Using the rubric of McLaughlin and Moore (2012), the
essays were evaluated for the criteria of focus, logic, content, style and correctness, leav-
ing out the final element of research as it was not a requirement in this particular writing
task. The grades were divided into ‘Superior, Skilled, Adequate and Inadequate’
(McLaughlin and Moore, 2012: 150). A final grade using these criteria was also given to
facilitate final marking although the rubric only allows for evaluation of the six criteria
separately. The detailed grades are given in Table 1.
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Mehta and Al-Mahrouqi 9
The most significant observation which could be immediately made on the writings in
this assignment was that a majority of students were not able to focus on the main argu-
ment of the essay which was the cultural aspect of the topic. As this was not an area
which was discussed at length in class, students found themselves incapable of introduc-
ing a new concept into their essays from the ones which had been discussed in the class-
room, such as tourism as an economic force, examples of tourism in Oman, data
concerning tourists in Oman as well as the benefits of tourism in Oman, all of which had
been discussed as part of concept mapping in the classroom. When confronted with a
new way of examining an old topic, students found themselves at a loss and strategized
to write around the information which was already known to them. Thus the following
thesis statements are indicative of the writings of the students:
1. Tourism is beneficial for a country because it will create jobs and develop
infrastructure.
2. Over 17 year, Oman has been taking care of tourism sector and making plans for
inviting this sector hoping to enhance the countries’ economy.
3. They want to know more about Oman, but to want to know a country, you must
know the culture first.
4. Tourism in Oman is vastly developing and more people from different cultures
are coming to it.
5. Tourism helps the culture of the country because people come to learn about
Oman.
In this selection of theses, it can be seen that only two students were able to point to the
idea of culture as being a determining factor in the tourism industry itself and even these
writings focused on the way in which tourists can benefit from the country visited, while
the question had pointed specifically at the way in which tourism benefitted both parties,
the tourists as well as the hosts. When given a chance to explore their topics more exten-
sively, students wrote the following in their paragraphs:
1. In conclusion, tourism has many advantages and benefits. Tourism has economic
benefits, social benefits and environmental benefits.
2. Every society should take care of tourism if they want to evolve their society.
Table 1. Grades given to students in their first essay.
Superior Skilled Adequate Inadequate
Content 2 1 5 22
Logic 1 5 7 17
Style 0 3 3 24
Correctness 0 2 6 22
Focus 0 1 3 26
Research NA NA NA NA
Final Grade 2 3 5 20
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10 RELC Journal
3. The social benefits of tourism are precious gains for communities. Tourism
encourages a community to widen its outlook and to endorse new ideas.
4. Tourism enables people to benefit from tours. They help widen one’s mind. It
also enables people to understand customs and lifestyles of people living in other
countries. This makes people become open-minded.
5. When people come to Oman, they can see the way in which Omanis live, their
language, their customs and lifestyle.
Re-drafting the Written Assignment
This written assignment was seen to be a preliminary effort on the part of the students to
include such higher order thinking skills as identifying the main focus of a piece of writ-
ing, evaluating author intention, identifying tone and purpose. Seen in this context, most
of the student writing had fallen short of the requirements of the course as well as the
students’ own expectations. Upon return of this particular assignment, one class hour was
spent discussing the question by writing it on the board again and asking students to re-
read the statement more critically. The discussion that ensued brought out diverse ele-
ments in the question given such as the focus on culture, the specific statement of the
question that both hosts and visitors could benefit from tourism and that this was itself an
argumentative sentence designed to challenge and provoke the writer. It was not neces-
sary, students realized, for them to agree with the sentence given in the question paper but
they were required to focus on the specific area of tourism which was underscored in this
context. Students could still use the material in their note cards (such as the data regarding
the number of students in Oman, the reasons why tourism was becoming an industry in
the country as well as the opinions of some visitors, most of which were positive).
Based on this in-class discussion, students were given another opportunity to write on
the same topic, this time as a home assignment but not using any more information than
that in the note cards. The attempt was to reformulate the given question with exactly the
same information, both quantitatively and qualitatively, to enable them to write based on
the class discussion. The writings were then submitted and re-evaluated using the same
rubric of MacLaughlin and Moore (2012) in which the criteria of critical thinking were
embedded within the evaluation. The results of this writing assignment were tabulated
into percentages. This time around, it was found that, of the 30 students who had submit-
ted their work, only 3 students (10%) got an overall grade of ‘Inadequate’ while 11 stu-
dents (33%) got a grade of ‘Skilled’. The theses which the students wrote the second time
around included:
1. Tourism is important because it is one way of understanding cultures.
2. Promoting intercultural understanding is one important outcome of encouraging
tourism
3. While tourism is important for the economy of the country it is even more impor-
tant to teach the culture of the country to tourists.
4. One of the ways to get to the culture of other people is through tourism.
5. When tourists come to Oman, they learn about the culture of the country and we
can learn about them as well.
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Mehta and Al-Mahrouqi 11
While students had still not grasped the essential focus of the question, which was to
identify the way in which tourism facilitated the understanding of cultures on the part of
the visitors (which is a given) but, more significantly, also the host nation itself, students
were more able, the second time around, to identify the points of focus more clearly and
argue with the specific focus on culture, avoiding the discussions on economy and statis-
tics which had been given earlier in the class.
Discussion of the Results
An analysis of the writing tasks of students at two consecutive writing samples shows
that critical thinking is a skill which can be imparted to EFL students when divided into
its core components of identifying purpose, the speaker and the intention of the written
text. Thus, inductive reasoning and source credibility of Norris and Ennis (1989) remain
essential elements of a text, the deconstruction of which enables a sustained critical read-
ing. When such reading is transferred to a writing context, the situation is further prob-
lematized as students find themselves unable to effectively use the information in their
readings in an original piece of writing. This situation is corrected only following in-
class discussions dealing with a critical reading of the topic given to the students. Based
on group discussions and systematic underlining of the focus of the topic, students were
able to write in a more effective manner, creating a thesis statement which was more
argumentative and engaged with the topic at hand. Subsequently, they felt more prepared
to read statements more (critically), looking for the main focus, the question asked as
well as the suggested bias in the question. Based on the four instructors who had partici-
pated in evaluating the writing above, critical thinking and writing skills can thus be seen
to be facilitated by the following factors:
1. Individual as well as group reflections on suggested topics.
2. Small group interactions followed by whole group discussion of the text under
consideration.
3. Training in close reading of tasks involved in writing, especially the topic in
question, to identify the focus, the connections required to be made and to under-
stand any biases inherent in the question itself.
4. Opportunity to draft an essay which can be discussed by peers as well as instruc-
tors in order to be able to fine tune the work based on ensuing discussions.
5. A final writing from a preliminary draft which has been reviewed, based upon
feedback on content as well as form.
6. Overall, the writing is on something with which the students are familiar or is, in
some ways, relevant to their immediate context.
7. Subsequent training in writing on areas which are of more generic interest could
be given to students as they proceed in the academic semester.
To a large extent, a review of material read in the classroom aids in the internalizing of
reading skills among students in an EFL writing class. This is necessary as students may
still not be ready to question a variety of texts written for different purposes and would
require further practice to identify texts as well as be able to tune their language to fit the
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12 RELC Journal
academic purpose. As in the prescribed text which was read in the class, tourism was an
area which was part of the official discourse in the media, but was also an experience
which the students had personally confronted in a number of ways, including tourists
coming to their villages as well as their presence in public parks and malls around the
city. This also supports the idea that writing is more successful when students have a
chance to explore areas with which they are familiar (Stapleton, 2002) and have received
guidance in the form of discussions and drafts.
Conclusion
While the cultural debate surrounding critical thinking has been somewhat sidelined,
following various studies (McKinley, 2013: 20) which called for defining it as more
than just an implicit quality which is incapable of change (Willingham, 2007), the
ways in which critical thinking could be encouraged, sustained and evaluated in
reading and writing contexts remain insufficiently explored. While it is important to
ensure that critical thinking is contextualized and tested by looking at ‘actual prod-
ucts from students rather than from independent, separate testing occasions’ (Candon
and Kelly-Riley, 2004: 73), it would be a procrastination to just wait for critical
thinking to be actively institutionalized across the board, as suggested by Phillips
and Bond (2004). The McKinley and Moore approach, while useful in quantifying
the degree of critical awareness in writing, does not measure such stylistic differ-
ences as voice and politeness in writing. This is important in the context of the EFL
student where the lack of confidence is reflected in the choice of words and tone
adopted for argumentative essays, owing to both linguistic as well as personal pref-
erences. Students may not be able to convincingly argue around an issue if they do
not have sufficient language fluency or even awareness of the content area. Critical
thinking should thus be more useful if seen to be a set of teachable skills, as pro-
moted by Davidson, reinforced by reflection, discussion and drafting, the evaluation
of which is based on the extent to which students have been able to express them-
selves following a series of discussions.
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or
not-for-profit sectors.
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