Critical Thinking as Reflected in the Sudanese and Jordanian Secondary School Certificate English Language Examinations

Abstract

This study emerges from the need of English Language Teachers in Sudan and Jordan to lay appropriate assessment strategies to meet the anticipated educational objectives among the learners of English. It is also hoped to improve language assessment in similar educational environments in the Arab world. We intended to find out the level of consistency between the educational objectives of the English language syllabus and the English language examinations in these two countries. These examinations are expected to have some beneficial washback on English pedagogy in general and on reading and writing skills in particular. These tests can be used as benchmark for the effectiveness of the teaching and the learning performance in the classroom. We found that most of the reading questions in EL examination focus on testing the low order of thinking such as knowledge and comprehension; which negatively affect the critical thinking abilities among these young learners. The study yielded many other findings but the most important is the negligence of testing speaking and listening skills which renders the standardized English language examinations in Sudan and Jordan to be incomprehensive, but on the other hand the study revealed that these examinations had some content validity.