Plan reading strategy helps to improve critical thinking through reading in efl students

Abstract

Reading strategies in the English language are very significant in the students’ learning process because, through reading, they can develop various skills; the most important, critical thinking. This skill will always be part of their academic, social and professional life. Other meta-cognitive strategies, such as inferring, deducing, and interpreting, are based on this skill, which allows students to expand their knowledge and criteria. Throughout their teaching, educators have found it challenging to develop these strategies. They have not had the necessary tools to do so. For this reason, the present work aims to study how using the PLAN reading strategy helps critical thinking through reading. This work was applied to 36 students in the sixth year of basic education at the General High School of "Atenas" in Ambato. The method used in this research was the quasi-experimental design since it allows students to study the change process and make immediate decisions. In addition, the pre-test and the post-test gave the final result after applying the investigation. This study employed a survey to measure students' opinions to demonstrate improved critical thinking skills through reading. This research lasted six months, during which several reading activities were carried out using the PLAN strategy. As a result, students could predict, Locate, Add, and Note the information from the readings xii provided to them. The final results show that students improved their critical thinking. In addition, they could read and comprehend the text easily. Moreover, students can now express their opinions and feelings about the reading topics more fluently. They feel more confident participating and developing the activities in class, because they are easy to complete, thus pupils achieve their goals in each reading task. Students also showed much interest in reading because, at the beginning of the research, most of them felt that reading was a monotonous and tedious activity.