Folk stories to develop critical thinking for second baccalaureate students at high school colegio Técnico Ancón, year 2021 - 2022

Abstract

Critical thinking has become a new skill for the 21st century learners, for this reason, this project focuses on the use of folk tales to contribute to the development of critical thinking skills to second baccalaureate students at high school “Colegio Técnico Ancón”. It was settled as result of this research a creation of a guidebook based in folk stories with a focus in the reinforcement of the reading comprehension and critical thinking skills. This research was carried out with a quantitative method and a descriptive design, creating an opportunity to analyze the limited exposure of student to activities related with the development of critical thinking. The data for this research was obtained through two surveys, consisting of two structures questionnaires, which were applied to 26 students and 7 EFL educators in order to gather authentic information from the participants. The data was analyzed through statistical charts and tables. It was possible to find out about the limited opportunities to develop critical thinking in the reading practice, and the lack of material related to local culture to be used in an English classroom. For this reason, as part of this project, a guidebook is proposed adapting short folk stories from the local community of Ancon and integrating activities that contribute to the development of critical thinking skills.