Developing critical reading skills for first year students in English department, college of foreign languages, Vietnam national university, Hanoi

Part 1 introduction
1. Background to the study and statement of the problem
1.1. Critical thinking and critical reading skills in the Age of Information
In the Age of Information, people are facing up with the information overload which can
be both an advantage and a big threat. It is, therefore, necessary for people especially
youngsters to have good ability of not being drowned in the ocean of information.
Accordingly, reading, which is the most popular means of processing information, should
be taken into account. Among the amount of information needed, the questions of what to
read, how to read effectively and what to believe are worthy of readers’ consideration. In
such a situation, critical reading is an essential skill which is described by Harris and
Hodges (1981) as
a process of making judgments in reading, evaluating relevance and adequacy of
what is read, an act of reading in which a questioning attitude, logical analysis
and inference are used to judge the worth of what is reading according to an
establish standard
Critical reading which is significant to EFL students for mastering critical reading skills
will provide students with the ‘right tool’ (Milan, 1995), in short term, to enhance their
process of studying at university and, in long term, to serve them well for the rest of their
life.
A remarkable number of students and teachers, however, does not have in-depth
knowledge of critical reading, what its elements are and how to develop it. They are not
even aware of the role of critical reading in the teaching and learning process. This leads
to quite lots of problems concerning behaviorism, self discovery and other cognitive
matters. The lack of a full awareness of critical reading may result in not only teachers’
clueing in and students’ knowledge acquiring but also curriculum design or teachers and
students interaction in classroom, etc.
In the history of pedagogy, methodology, psychology and humanism, a variety of
research on critical thinking and its related problems and solutions have been conducted.
In a very humble way, this research is aimed to follow the founding fathers of the field to
bone up the most basic knowledge about critical thinking skill.
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Next, because of the limitation of time as well as of the restrains on reference sources, the
researcher will not cover up every aspect of critical thinking but just critical thinking in
relation to the effective reading of first year students in English Department, College of
Foreign Languages (CFL), Vietnam National University (VNU). As applying critical
thinking skills in reading, students will become more effective readers who are capable of
applying the given skills to achieve academic success in their language learning.
1.2. An overview of reading course in English Division 1, English Department, CFL,
VNU
1.2.1. Course objectives
At the end of the course, first year students will be able to understand various average-
level discourses such as magazine articles, letters, stories, etc. and apply basic reading
strategies including locating specific information (scanning), extracting main ideas
(skimming), dealing with unfamiliar words, understanding author’s attitude,
understanding text organization, understanding referencing devices and understanding
text inferences. Besides, the ability to deal with the following types of exercises such as
true/ false, multiple choice, gap – fill, matching and open-ended questions and the
ability to build up their background knowledge and vocabulary range through reading
passages will also be attained.
To develop critical reading skills, it is very important to set up a range of objectives which
aims at developing thinking process in reading skills. In reality, out of seven objectives of
Reading 2 mentioned above, only the last four ones relate to critical reading skills:
understanding author’s attitude, understanding text organization, understanding
referencing devices and understanding text inferences. However, the activities and tasks
used in the course do not help students meet those objectives. (The analyses of the
activities and tasks will be made in the analysis of the material from page 3-8.)
1.2.2. The syllabus (A detailed syllabus is provided in Appendix 1)
The major strength of the syllabus is that it gives clear instructions to teachers and
students on pieces of work they are expected to do every week. This will help them be
well prepared for class and that would increase the efficiency of teaching and learning.
Also, the syllabus saves the first week as an orientation week which is carried out in

various forms such as formal lectures, discussions, debates, story telling, text reading or
simply informal talks. The benefits of orientation activities are: 1. creating opportunities
for students and teachers and students themselves to get to know each other to exchange
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experiences, attitudes and opinions. 2. orienting students towards college study methods
in general and effective ways to learn the four language skills in particular. Such
preparation has been proved to respond to actual needs of students during their early days
at college.
In addition, the syllabus gives space for the teachers to design or collect further reading
by themselves. Nevertheless, it is not an easy task due to time restraints and the lack of
reference sources.
In the syllabus, there are three revision weeks. Traditionally, teachers give students the
tests of the previous years to do as a way of practicing reading under time pressure and
developing examination skills. In fact, this activity is relevant if the biggest purpose of the
course is merely to get good marks in the exams. However, if developing critical thinking
and critical reading skills for students are also the aims of the syllabus, then more
thought-provoking tasks and activities would have to be included.
1.2.3. The critique of the material
‘Practice your reading skills’ is the only in-use-textbook which is designed, adapted and
combined by a group of teachers in the Division. The use of only one course book in the
whole semester may reduce the chances for students to experience different view points,
beliefs and values, build up their own knowledge, reflect their attitudes, assumptions and
even prejudices through comparing and examining which inevitably may bring about the
biased, subjective way of thinking being the killer of critical thinking. Therefore,
introducing appropriate materials as supplementary to the main textbook is one of the
researcher’s tasks in this study.
Followings is a brief overview of major strengths and weaknesses of the material
a. The strengths
Comparing to the course objectives the syllabus is quite suitable. The core course book
‘Practice your reading skills’ is a basic reading for pre-intermediate students of English.

Through 24 non-specialized theme-based units of the book and several extra activities, the
reading course is aimed to develop the following reading skills for the students including
getting the gist of a topic, drawing key concepts out of a reading, practicing reading
strategies, learning how to use some clues for understanding.
Besides, it also fosters the interaction between the readers and the texts. The core book
contains informative, relevant and versatile texts, fun activity types, and varied
vocabulary development materials. Specially, there are numerous activities designed to
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develop students’ communicative competence, i.e. the activities provide opportunities to
incorporate listening, speaking and writing into the language lessons.
In the book, the activities which are at low thinking levels in Bloom’s Taxonomy are
conducive to individual, pair and group work and are designed not to teach students to
read but to guide students to practice reading skills. As a result, the book can be used both
for self-study and in the class room.
The topics were well - chosen to fit the themes of other three skills so students can
practice the language again and again when speaking, listening, writing and reading. The
topics are interesting and relevant. They can be practical and real as in ‘Language
Learning’, ‘Jobs and Career’, etc. but they can still be imaginative and brilliant as in
‘Achievers’ and ‘Science’.
In general, the book can meet the general goal of the division for improving students’
reading skills. Nonetheless, during the teaching and learning process, ‘Practice your
reading skills’ has revealed a lot of problems.
b. The weaknesses
‘Practice your reading skills’ is the only in-use-textbook which is designed, adapted and
combined by a group of teachers in the Division. The use of only one course book in the
whole semester may reduce the chances for students to experience different view points,
beliefs and values, build up their own knowledge, reflect their attitudes, assumptions and
even prejudices through comparing and examining which inevitably may bring about the
biased, subjective way of thinking being the killer of critical thinking. Therefore,
introducing appropriate materials as supplementary to the main textbook is one of the

researcher’s tasks in this study.
The first apparent problem is the gap between theoretical objectives and reality. Being one
of the four language courses in Division 1, reading must fit the objectives of the
curriculum which attempts to reach the standard of the first level set by Cambridge
University Local Examinations Syndicate. That means after finishing the first year,
students will reach the standard of PET level (pre-intermediate). However, the level is
only suitable for listening and speaking skills. Many first year students are so good at
reading that they can easily finish the First Certificate reading texts. Therefore, it is a real
challenge to design a material that is able to fit the curriculum as well as students’ ability,
interests and demands. The book must contain multi-level reading texts from beginning to
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first certificate, from simple to more complicated. Within this light, the content, is not
cohesive because some texts and exercises are quite easy while some others are quite
difficult and more advanced.
To fix the problem, teachers have to be flexible when using the material in class. They
have to design some extra activities and questions for the simple reading texts and
simplify the difficult tasks by helping students with new words, giving the instructions
carefully or asking students to work in group where strong students can help weaker ones
with the difficult tasks. The teachers can also classify the tasks by giving the more
challenging tasks to stronger students and less difficult ones to weaker students.

The second problem area is the content of the material. The text types in the material are
quite variable, from short stories, specialized articles, reports, reviews, letters,
advertisements to diagrams or pie charts. The reading texts are quite different in level of
difficulties and complication and used mostly to present or practice new language,
general comprehension and information-finding. To examine the content of the material
carefully, the researcher has based on the two following categories: task types, stages of
reading and possibility of combining with other skills (listening, speaking and writing).
That action helps bring about the opportunities to comment on the criticalness of the
material which will be discussed in the later part.

From what is shown in detailed syllabus and the list of task types and text types in each
stage of reading as analyzed by the writer (for details, see Appendix 2 ), it is easy to make
some comments as follow:
+ In ‘Practice your reading skills’ many units lack pre-reading and/or post-reading
stages which seems against the attempt to develop critical reading skills gradually through
the stages.
+ The activities for the two stages are not diversified. Mainly, students are asked
to discuss/write about related issues after reading which leads to frequent practices of
speaking / writing skills but the neglect of listening.
+ The instructions of the activities are not clear enough.
+ The material is not cohesive as there are some parts with much more critical
content (Unit 21 – Art) than any other parts. Besides, some instructions are so detailed
that they become wordy.
- ‘Criticalness’ (the portion or the percentage of being critical of the content of a material)
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To examine the criticalness of reading material, the researcher used three following
criteria as suggested by Spiegel (1990:410) content validity, transfer potential and
amount of reinforcement.
Content validity refers to how well the materials deliver what they promise or whether
they are true to the rationale or theory that the materials purport to follow. To assert that a
material is critical means to prove its promotion of reflective thinking and strategic
planning. The core book of the course, nevertheless, does not absolutely meet that
demand. While being critical means being well-reasoned rather than having quick
answers, along with some higher level (intermediate) tasks that do not have obvious
solutions, there are numerous situations when students can easily find the answers to the
questions. Mostly, the material does not require students to pause, reflect, consider and
‘try out more than one hypothesis or attend to several factors before settling upon an
answer’. (For the sample reading task of week two, see Appendix 3)
Normally, the six main comprehensive questions are being successful tools for teachers to
develop scanning skills of students. Yet, in term of critical thinking development, they do

not meet the intellectual demands of high level cognition skills and can only be
categorized as Right There QARs whose answers are obvious in the text. To answer this
type of questions, students only have to use low level cognitive skills.
If it is to develop students’ critical reading skills, the book needs a lot of further
improvements. Among all ten units analyzed, there is only one passage in unit 21 – Arts
that contains the ‘criticalness’. The activities require students not only to comprehend but
also dig down into the author’s points, the referencing devices and the organization and
purposes of the ideas. The tasks given out also have a very close relationship with other
critical and communication skills beside simple reading. Doing the tasks, students have to
write, reflect, express and compare.
Transfer potential involves the manner in which the students practices or uses the task of
interest. The second criterion, which involves exploring right or wrong answers,
explaining divergent answers and identifying clue words, asks about three aspects:
practicing, awareness and acceptance. In the first place, students must be given
opportunities to practice the transferring skills. To beginners, this stage must be
controlled by the teacher who has the responsibility of stating the connection between the
text and other non verbal materials. Besides, students are also instructed to know where to
transfer and how to transfer. In order to have a detailed plan to transfer, the material
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should be systematic and well-instructive. Yet, the material lacks both features as it was
designed without a consistent format and united language proficiency. Some tasks are too
easy, some others are too complicated. Some types of exercises are too long and some are
repeated. Certain instructions are even incorrect in grammar and not clear enough to
understand. Moreover, the connection between the texts and other skills is not clear. That
leads to the lack of transferring the tasks and the knowledge.
Amount of reinforcement is the provision of opportunities to apply new understanding in
meaningful and interesting contexts. This is considered more important for critical
reading than other reading tasks. To obtain this criterion, the material must be designed
with variety of activities to develop analyzing skills, determining sequence, etc with
variety of activities. Some reading materials in the world which are accredited as good

critical reading materials must have three to five activities accompanying with one unit.
The material, unfortunately, does not provide any other resource pack for the teacher as
well as students. All the time spent in class is for students to do the exercises and teachers
to correct the answers. If the teachers want to provide students with more extra tasks they
will have to design themselves. This work, however, is rather difficult for beginning
teachers due to the restraint on time, money and professional supervision.

One more thing about the material is that it has no teacher’s manuals. It is true that the
teachers’ instructions, methods and behaviors play a very significant role in developing
students critical reading skills. The teacher’s manuals, therefore, will be a good
professional help as they do not only bring in transparency matters for the lessons but the
guidelines that assist teachers in many ways.
1.2.4. Teachers
Conventionally, all teachers in Division 1 are young which presumably means they do not
have much experience in teaching in particular and in life in general. However, they do
possess certain advantages such as being enthusiastic, active, ready to apply new methods
or think in new ways and adaptive to different situations. They are also very hard-
working. The evidence is that they were continuously working very hard to produce all
the materials used in the reading course.
Another notable point is that all teachers in Division 1 have graduated from CFL, VNU
and many of them experienced the same non-cognition oriented reading materials as well
as a curriculum with no subject named critical thinking when they were students. Only a
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few ones graduating from fast track classes had chances to develop good thinking skills
through their exposure to a learning environment where critical thinking is promoted
1.2.5. Students
Generally, at high school, every week students only have one forty five minute-reading
class and reading materials are poor in terms of quality. The reading skills which are paid
most attention to in the English syllabus at high school are scanning, skimming, guessing
the meaning of new words and inferring. Not only for reading for speaking, writing and

listening skills as well, thought-provoking activities are seldom found in their textbook.
It is obvious that most first year students of English Department are well selected, and
eager to learn since they all have to go through a very demanding entrance examination.
Among the four language skills taught in the first year, reading seems to be the strongest
skill for most students because it was more frequently practiced when they were still at
school to serve the main purpose of passing the university entrance examination.
However, once they have to learn how to read critically, reading is no longer too easy.
Usually in the orientation week, first year students have chances to express their own
opinions about reading and they all agree that reading is very important not only in
English learning but also in any content class English is used as a medium. Yet, hardly do
they know about how to develop reading skill as a cognitive and communicative skill. As
well, they do not know how to combine different strategies in reading. The effectiveness
of learning reading skills, therefore, remains a big challenge for a large number of first
year students.
2. Aims of the study
The research aims specifically at (1) investigating the attitudes of first year students and
teachers toward critical reading; (2) exploring the problems that students encounter in
studying and applying critical reading; (3) offering suitable teaching strategies in
developing critical reading skills for first year students.
3. Scope of the study
Being an action research on first year students’ and teachers’ critical reading skills, the
study is confined to critical thinking skill in reading of first year students in English
Department, CFL, VNU.
In other words, the research will help raise the awareness of first year students in the
university towards the necessity of building up and developing critical reading skills.
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With the manageable population and variants of fifty students and ten teachers in Division
1, English Department, CFL, VNU, the research will hopefully contribute to the
improvement of teaching and learning methods as well as the advancement of the
students’ cognitive ability.

4. Organization of the paper
Apart from Introduction (Part 1) and Conclusions (Part 3), the research is divided into
three chapters:
- Chapter 1 presents Literature Review. It gives an overview of most updated theories on
critical thinking, critical reading and issues related to teaching critical reading.
- Chapter 2 deals with Methodology which demonstrates the data collection instruments
and the procedure of the experiment.
- Chapter 3 namely Data analysis, Discussion of major findings and Recommendations
reports the results of the investigation into the reality of teaching and learning critical
reading in Division 1, CFL, VNU. In this chapter, answers to the two research questions
are also given. The answers are also the major findings which help the research find a
practical basis for further recommendations.
5. Method of the study
This will be an action research which provides many opportunities for the researcher to
test the theories as well as applications in reality. As a result, the most appropriate ways
of developing critical reading skills will be reached.
- Research questions
1. What are the students attitudes to critical thinking and critical reading skills?’
2. What are the problems first year students face when developing critical thinking in
general and critical reading in particular?
3. How do critical thinking and critical reading strategies help to improve
students critical thinking and critical reading?’
- Participants
The participants includetwo groups of 07E students Division 1, English Department, CFL,
VNU which are the subjects of the study and ten teachers of Division 1, English
Department who are the respondents.
Data collection instruments contain semi-structured interviews, observation and
experiment.
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part 2 development

Chapter 1 Literature Review
This chapter reviews the most basic knowledge of critical thinking, critical reading, the
relationship between critical thinking and critical reading and different aspects of
teaching critical reading.
1. An overview of critical thinking
1.1. The definition of critical thinking
Terminologically, critical thinking has been defined in various ways. Chance (1986 : 6)
defined critical thinking as ‘the ability to analyze facts, generate and organize ideas,
defend opinions, make comparisons, draw inferences, evaluate arguments and solve
problems’ while Mertes (1991 : 24) characterized critical thinking as ‘a conscious and
deliberate process which is used to interpret or evaluate information and experiences with
a set of reflective attitudes and abilities that guide thoughtful beliefs and actions’. Such a
difference results from the continuous changes in psychology and philosophy theories. In
1996, Scriven and Paul described critical thinking as
the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing,
applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from,
or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or
communication, as a guide to belief and action. (p. 12)
Though sounding relatively similar in some ways with the two definitions given by
Chance(1986) and Mertes (1991), this comprehensive definition got much attention from
scholars of the field because of its clarity and validity. To be more exact, Scriven and Paul
just figured out the natural feature of critical thinking as an active and practice-required
thinking process including distinctive cognitive behaviors.
In Vietnam, many people tend to have a negative view toward the common meaning of
the word ‘critical’. For them, if someone is critical, he is likely to question, to judge
severely and ready to find faults about things and people around. Therefore, in their
opinion, critical thinkers seem doubtful and never satisfied. However, the concept
“critical” is more widely known in the modern world today as “giving careful, exact
evaluation and judgments” (Cambridge Advanced Learners’ Dictionary). Those
evaluation and judgments result from inquisitive questions and doubt which are principal

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tools and motivation for critical thinkers to seek truth. Accordingly, the quality of
thinking and doing is heightened. In this regard, the meaning of the word “critical” is
definitely interpreted with a positive sense.
However, critical thinking does not assure that one will always reach either the truth or
correct conclusions. Such cases happen when one does not have all the relevant
information, or makes unjustified inferences, uses inappropriate concepts, or may be a
victim of prejudices or biases. Then, “having a critical spirit is as important as thinking
critically” (Norris, 1985: 31). The critical spirit does not only consist of the ability to
think critically but also accepts the fact that reality can be much more difficult or
different and the solutions can be all wrong, then the effort to search for new solutions
will always be encouraged. The critical spirit requires one to consider all aspects of life,
to reckon not only one's own but others’ thinking, and “to act on the basis of what one has
considered when using critical thinking skills.” Norris (1985:44).
Naturally, critical thinking is skeptical. When people think something over, they ask
questions about its validity, reliability as well as possibility. Just like what Shakespeare
stated ‘to survive means to be skeptical’, skepticism helps things move on and develop. If
things are easily accepted without questioning or testing, they will never be renewed,
upgraded or renovated.
Conventionally, critical thinking is considered different from other kinds of thinking such
as lateral thinking (a way of solving a problem by thinking about it imaginatively and
originally and not using traditional or expected methods), creative thinking (putting facts,
concepts and principles together in new and original ways) and reflective thinking
(carefully analyzing thinking). Some experts put critical thinking in a parallel and
corresponding position with other thinking skills. The research conductor, however,
reckons that critical thinking is overall moderator of almost every other thinking skill.
That means a critical thinker is accomplished in the flexible use of cognition skills. In
other words, critical thinking not only helps improve people’s cognitive skills but also
helps them improve their adaptability and flexibility to master their own lives. To be more
concrete, a critical thinker will be the one who knows when, where, why and how to use

one, some or all of the thinking skills effectively.

To sum up, critical thinking refers to the active, conscious mental process which employs
general principles and procedure of thinking to seek truth and judgments.
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1.2. The elements of critical thinking
The question of what the elements of critical thinking are remains controversial
depending on different research criteria. The classification given in this part is based upon
most commonly accepted categorization of critical thinking elements in literature. In this
regard, critical thinking is comprised of two basic complex elements: the cognitive skills
and the affective dispositions.
1.2.1 Cognitive skills
In the history of research on education and pedagogy, various ways to categorize
cognitive skills have been explored. Among all, the most common way is to base on the
taxonomy which was first developed in 1956 by Benjamin Bloom and revised in 2001 by
Anderson, & Krathwohl. According to the taxonomy, within three overlapping domains:
the cognitive, psychomotor and affective, the thinking process is divided into six levels in
a hierarchical order from the lowest to the highest one.
The first level is knowledge (including facts, ideas, terms, concepts, etc.) which is
obtained through communication, observation, senses and so on. According to
www.eduscapes.com, knowledge level may contain collecting, defining, describing,
identifying, showing, naming, recording, reading, copying, quoting and selecting which
are to serve the purpose of getting knowledge including dates, events, places, vocabulary,
key ideas, diagram, etc.
The second level namely comprehension (involving associating, comparing,
distinguishing, extending, interpreting, predicting, etc.) demonstrates understanding of
facts and ideas, inferring causes and consequences or transferring meaning.
Application, the third level, is problem solving by applying, classifying, changing,
relating, reporting, etc. acquired knowledge, facts, techniques and rules in a different
way.

The forth level, analysis is the breakdown of information into parts to examine and try to
understand the structure of the information
Synthesis which is the fifth level is the process of mingling all possible opinions.
The last level, evaluation, is judgment making judgments about the quality of work
basing on a set of criteria.
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Figure 1 - Bloom’s Taxonomy about six levels of cognition
Incorporating Bloom’s Taxonomy into critical thinking process, the elements or the steps
of critical thinking can be categorized as follows:
Knowledge (Fact Acquisition - Observations, Reflections and Communication): People
can obtain series of information through the four communication skills as well as
watching and reflecting.
Comprehension (Interpretation) or Understanding Knowledge includes fact inferences
and analysis. From the series of facts or from the facts that remain undiscovered people
can make inferences. This process of forming opinions or guessing that something is true
depends on the knowledge that one may have before hand. This element reveals a fact that
those who are knowledgeable are normally good critical thinkers. Analysis refers to the
acts of examining and breaking information into parts by identifying motives or causes;
making inferences and finding evidence to support generalizations.
Application invloves assumptions and analysis. In assumptions, people judge the
inferences they have so they can come to the assumptions. Different assumptions lead to
different opinions which decide the actions or reactions. Opinions can lead to arguments
that will be used to challenge others’. The next level is analysis that helps people see and
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Evaluatio
n
Synthesis
Analysis
Application
Comprehension

Knowledge
organize parts of a piece of information and recognize hidden meaning and identify
components. The analysis at this level differs from that at Comprehension level as it
focuses on the meaning rather than form of a text.
Synthesizing is the act of mixing different ideas, opinions and influences to make new
ones. The new idea can be subjective, objective, equivalent or improper, original or
unoriginal depending on the quality of the ideas taken from the previous stages. One
popular question asked in the level is ‘what if’ which is used to validate the situations
after new ideas are created. Useful activities occurred in the level are combining,
composing, creating, adapting, reinforcing, generalizing and designing.
Evaluating is the step which encourages students to make judgments according to a set of
criteria without giving out real wrong or right answers. Evaluation also includes analysis
and recommending. The analysis at this higher level is different from that in the
Comprehension and Application level. In Comprehension, people analyze separate pieces
of information while in this step they judge the assumption to identify all sides of the
argument before final judgments are made. After ideas are critiqued, recommendations
will be made. Those recommendations will be analyzed continuously and the
improvements will always be suggested.
In sum, as Bloom defines the first three levels of his taxonomy as lower order thinking
levels, critical thinking (higher-order thinking skills) concerns the top three levels:
analysis, synthesis and evaluation which are obviously associated with a wide range of
complex cognitive skills and sub-skills.

1.2.2. Critical thinking dispositions
Naturally, dispositions are particular types of characters that a person has. Describing
one’s dispositions is to mention his/her habitual ways of acting. In social psychology,
dispositions are conceived as an attitude or attitudinal tendency which plays the role as
the orientation of people’s thinking and behaviors.
In productive thinking, there are two kinds of dispositions: advantageous dispositions
which have supportive influences on the growth of thinking and disadvantageous

dispositions which are obstacles to the development of thinking. As there is an
insurmountable number of dispositions as indicated in critical thinking related literature,
only four most typical affective dispositions are taken for illustration
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Advantageous dispositions Disadvantageous dispositions
- open-mindedness: Critical thinking must
be built basing on the open mind to new
point of views. Considering a variety of
possible view points or perspectives and
remaining open to alternative
interpretations are two out of many
conditions to activate critical thinking.
- self awareness: critical thinkers are
thinkers who are aware of their own values
on which they base their judgments.
Critical thinkers have the ability to identify
their values and the ways they evaluate the
surroundings depend on whether they share
the values with others or not.
- egocentricity: egocentricity is the inability
and unwillingness to consider other view
points. It results in a refusal to accept new
ideas and facts. It leads to the circumstance
that people think the way they see things is
exactly the way things are while in reality,
‘seeing is not believing’.
- conservatism: conservatives tend to
oppose changes which they argue only
cause a breakdown in traditional beliefs and
structures. If someone is conservative, he

thinks that what has worked well should be
assumed to be good enough to work
forever. That leads to the passiveness and
reluctance in thinking.
Table 1 Advantageous and disadvantageous dispositions–
As elements of critical thinking, advantageous dispositions are terminologically called
critical thinking dispositions. Obviously, there is a close relationship between critical
thinking skills and critical thinking dispositions. In other words, a person with several
advantageous characteristics such as being open-minded, analytical, inquisitive, confident
in reasoning etc. is, in most cases, a good critical thinker.
1.2.3. The basic differences between a good critical thinker and a poor critical thinker
In literature on critical thinking, many scholars make a clear distinction between critical
thinkers and non-critical thinkers (Sandy,1997:120; Driscoll, 2000:86). However, the
researcher would adopt a neutral view that almost everyone has more or less the hidden
potential cognitive skills and dispositions required of critical thinking. The only thing that
matters is the levels of critical thinking among people are various due to the different
levels of awareness, knowledge and frequencies of practicing those skills.
The following table synthesized from various sources shows the features that help to
distinguish between a good critical thinker and a poor one.
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A good critical thinker A poor critical thinker
• is supposed to have a sense of curiosity.
• is naturally skeptical.
• is an active person who always ask
questions and analyze information. In
other words, a good critical thinker is
eager to understand things thoroughly.
• is an objective person who never imposes
his own values and perceptions on
surrounding things.

• is able to reject incorrect and irrelevant
information and suspend judgments even
after a hard time if collecting facts and
proof.
• is open for new things.
• is someone who always challenges his
own beliefs and wants to search for new
ones.
• is not willing to learn new things.
is a person who considers everything
‘wrong’ or ‘right’, ‘black’ or ‘white’. Poor
critical thinkers take a simplistic view of
the world. They do not view the world in
different points and even they do not accept
or realize that others have different points
of view from theirs.
• is blind to the variety and diversity.
• always puts his prejudices, biases, habits
or purposes the first and the only validity.
Table 2 The differences between a good critical thinker and a poor critical thinker–
Usually, poor critical thinkers apply some types of thinking that can be hindrances to
critical thinking. According to Ennis (1992: 89), those types of thinking may take the
form of:
Habitual thinking which is based on past practices without considering current data.
Doing this type of thinking, a person gets stuck in the rut and can not break the old habits
and try new methods.
Brainstorming which make thinkers say whatever comes to mind without evaluation.
People thinking this way are easily influenced by their assumptions. Assumptions can be
quite useful, especially assumptions that are foundation of all the belief and values like
axioms in mathematics. Yet, assumptions can be very dangerous if they are built on

false initial premises. To think critically, one must identify his assumptions and consider
their justification before presenting the ideas.
Prejudicial thinking. Prejudicial thinkers gather evidences to support a particular position
without questioning the position itself. A thinker of this type holds his very own
prejudices which are considered major obstacles to his critical thinking. Prejudices spring
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from subjective factors such as race, religion, class, ethnicity or gender. To be a critical
thinker does not mean one must leave all of his ideas. It means one should know whether
the opinions are right or wrong, suitable or unsuitable and adjust if necessary.
Emotive thinking which responds to the emotion of a message rather than the content.
Emotive thinkers always base on their sense rather than the sensibility. This way of
thinking goes completely further from logical and intellectual thinking.
1.3. Critical thinking in learning
1.3.1. Critical thinking in learning
As a saying goes ‘To learn is to think. To think poorly is to learn poorly. To think well is
to learn well’, critical thinking plays a very important role in learning as it is in close
connection with all aspects of learning. The limited scope of this study does not allow the
researcher to go into all of the aspects but just three prominent ones namely learner’s
dispositions, questioning and the making or arguments.
a. Critical thinking and learner’s dispositions
The relationship between critical thinking and learners’ dispositions are the cause and
effect relationship. In view of Ferrett (1997), a critical thinker has the following affective
dispositions:
- is able to admit a lack of understanding or information. As mentioned earlier, critical
thinking can not always lead to clear and obvious conclusions. Critical thinkers have to
accept the fact that some things may remain mysterious and will be revealed later.
- has a sense of curiosity. Having that kind of sense, the thinker will always want to find
out about the new things. He may ask questions and cling to the pursuit of the answers.
- is interested in finding new solutions. The desire to search for new things refreshes and
fosters oneself. If one is satisfied with one solution only, he will not be thirsty for the new

ones, which may lead to the intellectual inferiority.
- is willing to examine beliefs, assumptions, and opinions and weighs them against facts.
A critical thinker suspends judgment until all facts have been gathered and considered.
He looks for evidence and proof to support assumption and beliefs. He is able to reject
information that is incorrect or irrelevant and is able to adjust opinions when new facts
are found. As a result, the best solution will be given.
- listens willingly and carefully to others and is able to give feedback. Listening to others
helps a person to understand more not only about his own values but others’ also.
Comparing those values assists people find out the ones which are most appropriate for
them.
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- sees that critical thinking is a lifelong process. If a person wants to be a good critical
thinker, he will have to practice regularly.
Those dispositions are not only affective when one is learning. They are very helpful in
his whole life because they are necessary qualities and skills that people need in solving
problems not only in learning but also in his life time.
b. Critical thinking and questioning
Critical thinking and questioning have an interrelated relationship. To think critically,
people have to ask questions to comprehend, analyze or evaluate, i.e. asking questions is a
part of critical thinking, while to be able to make good questions, different elements of
critical thinking must be involved. Obviously, one criterion for a thinker to be critical is to
know how to ask pertinent questions which help to examine problems closely and get the
most out of facts, information and proof.

Basically, questions have two main functions in learning: to check students’ output and
‘to involve students in interaction.’ (Wu, 1993:50). In critical sense, questions have some
more roles as to provoke and examine different types of thinking, beliefs, opinions and
attitudes. Moreover, questions serve as an effective tool to discover the truth as being
called “a truism” (Gall,1990:707).

In realizing those six levels of the taxonomy in language classrooms, questions can be
divided into ‘lower-level’ and ‘higher-level’. Lower level questions which are at the first
three levels: knowledge, comprehension, and application mainly serve the three following
purposes:
- evaluating students’ preparation and comprehension
- diagnosing students’ strengths and weaknesses
- reviewing and/or summarizing content
(www.oir.uiuc.edu)
Higher level questions are those of three more complex levels. They are to:
- encourage students to think more deeply and critically
- solve problems
- encourage discussions
- stimulate students to seek information on their own
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In most cases, good teachers know how to categorize the questions according to the levels
of their students. For example, if synthesis questions are found to be difficult to the
students, teachers may lower the level of difficulty by asking questions simply for
analysis or application. As such, teachers’ flexibility and adaptability are of great
importance in alternating types of questions to ask to stimulate students’ thinking.
According to Bloom’s Taxonomy, questions can be categorized into six different levels.
To ask proper questions and to use appropriate teaching strategies, teachers should
determine the levels of students first and decide the suitable levels of questions that can
be classified as follows:
Level Question cues Examples
Knowledge tell, describe, collect, quote, list,
define, identify, show, who, when,
where
Who is ...? What is ?…
Where does happen?…
Comprehension summarize, describe, interpret,

contrast, predict, estimate,
differentiate, discuss, extend
What is about?…
What are the main ideas of ?…
Why did not happen?…
Application apply, demonstrate, calculate,
illustrate, show, change, classify,
experiment, discover
Draw some cartoons or charts or
tables to illustrate the story/ the main
ideas of the passage
How is an example of ?… …
How is related to ?… …
Why is significant?…
Analysis analyze, separate, order, explain,
compare, explain, infer
Why does happen instead of ?… …
How does compare with ?… …
What evidence can you list for ?…
What can you learn from ?…
Synthesis combine, integrate, modify, rearrange,
invent, what if, compose, generalize,
rewrite
What ideas can be added to ?…
What might happen if you combine …
with ?…
List events of the story in sequence
What might you say about the future
of the story’s characters?
Evaluation assess, decide, rank, grade, measure,

judge, explain, support, conclude,
compare, summarize
Do you agree/ disagree with ?…
What do you think about ?…
What is the most important ?…
What is the significance of for the…
period of time/ the context?
Compare the story with other stories.
Table 3 Sample questions classified in six levels–
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One more thing that should be considered regarding question types is open and closed
questions. Some researchers may put closed questions into lower level levels because they
think this type of questions hinders learners’ thinking. The interpretation for this is that a
limited amount of answers is always provided before hand by teachers. Yet, in fact, both
open and closed questions can be put at any level of questioning. To illustrate for this
point, Linn (2006) offer examples of open and closed questions at both lower level and
higher level as follows:
Lower level Open question: What is an example of an adjective?
Closed question: What are the stages of cell division?
Higher level Open question: What are some ways we might solve the
energy crisis?
Close question: Given the following data, would you say
that the illiteracy is because of the government or of the
people themselves?
Table 4 Sample questions of two levels–
Stressing the teacher as a role model in making questions, Aschner (1990, cited in Wu,
1993:49) states that the teacher is ‘a professional question maker’. It’s true that good
questions of the teacher stimulate learners’ thinking and learning. Nevertheless, to be
critical learners, students must learn to be independent and self-relied. Therefore, they
need to practice questioning by themselves. The practice of making questions is quite

similar to other thinking tasks as it comes from controlled to free steps, from lower levels
to higher levels of thinking. At the very first step, teachers’ questions serve as models or
examples and teachers’ instructions decide the way to structure questions and to form
questioning habits of students. Then, the more proficient the students are, the more
imaginative and creative the questions can be, i.e. the questions at later steps can be ‘a
little crazy if possible’ Tarone (1978:46).
In a Socratic manner, teachers can use the following questions in order to engage the
thinking process in their classrooms:
1. What do you mean by_______________?
2. How did you come to that conclusion?
3. What was said in the text?
4. What is the source of your information?
5. What is the source of information in the report?
6. What assumption has led you to that conclusion?
7. Suppose you are wrong? What are the implications?
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8. Why did you make that inference? Is another one more consistent with the
data?
9. Why is this issue significant?
10. How do I know that what you are saying is true?
11. What is an alternate explanation for this phenomenon?
Those questions are to stimulate thinking related to the construction of knowledge and
fostering the ability of reflection. Their forms and purposes correspond to the higher
levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy. They can be used in different learning situations with a
high guarantee of efficiency.
However, the suggested questions are not adequate to all circumstances and all aspects of
learning, i.e. for each of language skills, questions must be appropriately selected. Since
the thesis’s concern is reading, the questions used in reading class will be thoroughly
discussed in the next part.
c. Critical thinking and the making of arguments

Critical thinking and argumentation are closely related. The foundation of critical
thinking is understanding how claims are supported or opposed by evidence. That means
a person being good at argumentation can be a good critical thinker because he must
possess essential critical thinking skills such as collecting information, synthesizing a
variety of positions and evaluating the positions. Throughout argumentation, people will
be encouraged to engage in effective critical thinking practices including
− investigating all sides of an issue
− defining the problem carefully and completely
− being willing to change a position when shown reasons and evidence
− seeking alternative solutions and divergent views in an attempt to choose
the best solution
− realizing that the best is not the same for everyone
− remaining open to others' values
− question and compare conflicting interpretations of data
− assessing the strength of reasoning and support
− evaluating conclusions
− applying values to reach or evaluate conclusions
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Additionally, the ability to make arguments demands a lot of critical thinking
components. Argumentation is not an easy skill to acquire as it asks for self-awareness,
other’s opinions understanding, reasoning, evaluating and concluding. People may think
that everyone can argue as everyone has their own opinions. However, the art of
argumentation is not simply the presentation of one’s opinions. A good argument requires
good premises, a syllogism, the skills of inducing and deducing. Conventionally, when
people sway others to accept their points of view, they often make a typical mistake of
ignoring the opinions or research of others. To correct that mistake, people have to assess
different sources to check and question others’ belief and view points.
In language classrooms, to enhance students’ ability of making arguments, there are two
important steps namely “input step” and “output step” as suggested by the writer. At the
very first stage, teachers should train students skills to identify good arguments. These

skills allow beginners of language learning to get familiar with aspects of intellectual
activities such as the roots of arguing, the process of making arguments, characteristics of
a convincing argument, etc. Usually, these skills are mastered effectively through the
activities of reading or listening. After learning how others make arguments, students
should be trained to do it themselves. The skills to construct convincing arguments could
be the following stage. By using evidence and good reasoning in speaking and writing,
students are able to nurture and promote their own critical thinking skills.
1.3.2. Being critical means being effective
According to David Nunan (2002:76), there are two phases to learning. The first one is
when learners obtain the knowledge through different ways including reading, watching,
listening, etc. This phase can be both subjective and objective, active and passive. The
second phase occurs when the learners use the acquired information effectively in their
learning as well as in their lives. In theory, one’s learning process stops when the second
phase finishes. However, to learn effectively and critically the two phases should be
repeated to make a circle, not a straight line. When applying the knowledge (the second
phrase), good learners reconsider it by asking questions, comparing the situations and
evaluating the reality to see what its drawbacks are and what features could be used,
improved or refused, what further knowledge or information should be obtained. The
circle not only helps learners understand fully the issues and but creates opportunities for
them to master their cognitive skills as well .
Combining the core elements suggested by Bloom et al’s Taxonomy of the Cognitive
Domain and Nunan’s two phases of learning as mentioned above, the researcher proposes
the following chart labeled “The circle of learning phases:
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Figure 2 The circle of learning phases–
As shown above, the levels and phases must be completed gradually, i.e. students must
master one level of thinking before they can move on to the next. It is not possible for
them to evaluate knowledge if previously they have not understood it, analyzed it and
applied it.
It is factual that developing critical thinking is both teachers’ and students’ responsibility

at every stage of learning. However, in initial learning stage, the role of teachers in
cultivating critical thinking is much more crucial. Building and developing critical
thinking skills for students are like partnering and instructing them to practice playing a
sport. As critical thinking is ‘a processes of active and conscious cognition’ (Critical
thinking in everyday life, 2005) which includes a variety of thinking skills, teachers play
the role as both partners and coaches who not only train the athletes but also form an
influential and effective interaction with them. Critical thinking is not likely to develop
spontaneously, it must be practiced regularly.
Among all kinds of classroom, language classrooms are one of the most advantageous
environments to develop critical thinking because they provide opportunities for students
to communicate, interact and collaborate. As Ustunluoglu (2004:3) puts it
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Second phase: During the
application of the acquired
knowledge, analysis,
synthesis and evaluation are
made.
First phase:
The result of the second
phrase leads s to the
increasing of extensive
knowledge
First phase:
Knowledge is gained and
understood
Second phase:
The extended knowledge
brings better application and
deeper and more profound
evaluation

By means of interactive approaches and materials, teachers can help students be ‘
aware of their perceptions, assumptions, prejudices and values and can help
students break old habits to construct a new point of view. ’
With advantages that a language classroom offers, language teachers can freely promote
critical thinking with different kinds of materials and activities to help students capture
information, exchange opinions with each other to challenge their understandings of the
world and the people around.
Without doubt, teachers have significant influences on building and developing critical
thinking for students in the classroom. To fulfill such an important mission, teachers must
be well-equipped with good materials and abundant inventories of activities as well as
appropriate teaching methodologies to arouse and promote student’s advantageous
dispositions which are likely to affect the formation and development of students’ critical
thinking.
2. An overview of critical reading
2.1. The concept of critical reading
Critical reading is a process in which readers use certain methods and strategies to get the
most out of the materials. When reading something critically, the reader will break down
an argument into its constituent parts and evaluate its strengths, weaknesses, and validity,
and know how to use its implications. Those analyses and evaluations lead to the decision
on which information is used and which is rejected.
2.2. The relationship between critical thinking and critical reading
There are different ways to distinguish critical thinking and critical reading. Some
researchers claim that critical reading comes before critical thinking as critical reading is
a technique for discovering information and ideas within a text while critical thinking is a
technique for evaluating information and ideas (that have already been discovered), for
deciding what to accept and believe. In this sphere, critical reading refers to a careful,
active, reflective and analytic reading and critical thinking involves reflecting on the
validity of what you have read in light of our prior knowledge and understanding of the
world. These contentions are circumstantial because one may raise the question if a
reader who understands the text fully can truly evaluate its assertions.

Within another light, some scholars would consider critical thinking and critical reading
as two together in harmony. Critical thinking helps one to apply several cognitive skills to
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understand the text fully .When the assertions seem to be irrational and invalid, the reader
will examine the text as a whole, considering the viewpoints from different angles so as to
choose to accept or reject them. To be able to recognize and understand different
viewpoints, then, the reader must learn to read critically.
Yet, though considered two in one, critical thinking and critical reading are still
distinctive. That means critical thinking is not critical reading and vice versa. While
people read, they sense the text objectively without imposing the prior knowledge or
views on it. While they evaluate ideas from the texts, they will have to keep the original
meaning. According to Bernet (1989), readers must not ‘allow themselves to force a text
to say what they would otherwise like it to say or they will never learn anything new.’ (p.
213)
2.3. Critical reading strategies
Successful critical reading is a combination of the following seven strategies (Nunan,
2001 : 187 - 196). Of all, the last three ones are much more influenced by critical
thinking than the first four. Deliberately, these three strategies are more cognitive and
contemplative while the first four are more mechanical.
Previewing
Previewing is ‘learning about a text before really reading it’. Previewing enables readers
to get connotations of the text. Readers can ask questions to consider the title such as
‘What can the title tell me about the text?’. In fact, the title always provides ‘clues to the
writer's attitude, goals, personal viewpoint, or approach.’ and ‘sees what you can learn
from the head notes or other introductory material, skimming to get an overview of the
content and organization, and identifying the rhetorical situation.’ Previewing also helps
readers learn about the structure. By asking such questions ‘How it is organized?’ ‘How is
the text structured?’ and looking through the materials, readers will understand not only
the frame but also the genre of the texts.
A critical reader should always:

- have a purpose before reading. By asking ‘What is my purpose for reading?’
readers know how to read, what to find and what reading skills to use effectively
beforehand.
- prepare to read with an open mind. An open mind is a clean and flat road leading
to information approaches. An open mind can also help readers to take in and/or
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