Critical discourse analysis and critical thinking: An experimental study in an EFL context

The present study investigated the impact of critical discourse analysis (CDA) on TEFL students’ critical thinking (CT) ability in Reading Journalistic Texts classes. In so doing, the study utilized an experimental design with 24 participants in the control group and 29 participants in the experimental group. The results of a pretest indicated that the participants of the two groups were homogenous with regard to their proficiency level as well as their critical thinking ability. The participants in the experimental group were instructed to critically analyze teacher-distributed articles and devise follow-up presentations based on CDA. The results of the posttest indicated that CDA has a positive and significant influence on learners’ critical thinking ability. CDA was also found to have the highest impact on two components of CT, interpretation and recognizing unstated assumption. The discussion and conclusions of the research are further presented with reference to the earlier findings.

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