Critical thinking and its benefits in EFL learning

Abstract

Nowadays critical thinking is as fundamental as the other skills, a skill of daily use such as reading, speaking, writing, and listening, helping to develop the analytical, critical thinking of each student, thus creating their own definitions, ideas, thoughts, and arguments. The main objective of this research project is to analyze the benefits of developing critical thinking through Bloom's taxonomy, focusing on the different ways of developing critical thinking skills such as making intelligent decisions, understanding about their actions, etc. Critical thinking covers some topics such as metacognition, argumentation, training, and possible solutions to problems. Through this project, it is known what critical thinking is, which great philosophers make known this ability and how it was implemented at the time, it is also known strategies to develop it, how it influences motivation and the different learning styles that exist within the classroom. To carry out this research, it was necessary to use two determined methods of methodology, which were the qualitative method and the phenomenological method, since from these methods it is possible to obtain very precise and necessary information to carry out the research project. On the other hand, the techniques used were through a focus group since we worked with a reasonable amount to collect the necessary information through instruments such as a small questionnaire with multiple questions. Then the respective analysis of the research data was carried out, where the different methods, strategies and activities used by teachers to promote the development of critical thinking are made known.