Linguistic Intelligence and Critical Thinking amongst Students of the Inland Water and Ferries Transport Polytechnic of Palembang

Abstract

This study investigates the students’ Linguistic Intelligence (LI) and Critical Thinking (CT) as Higher Order of Thinking Skills (HOTS) in the acquisition of English as a foreign language. 70 participants of Inland Water and Ferries Transport Polytechnic of Palembang took part in the current study. To measure the participants’ linguistic intelligence scores, the researchers used the Thomas Armstrong Intelligence Test derived from Howard Gardner’s MI Model. The instrument consists of 20 Likert type questions, for each of which 4 options are included. When testing participants’ critical thinking, they used the scheme and the measures that trail after the Watson- Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal. This test consists of five parts that are inferences, assumptions, deductions, interpreting information, and arguments. The results indicated that 11.43% of students displayed below average performances and 58.57% displayed high linguistic intelligence. Keywords: Linguistic Intelligence; Critical Thinking; Language Acquisition