Promoting critical thinking skills in efl university students in Benin

Abstract

Critical thinking skills represent an important component in a successful and rewarding study at the university level for it can benefit students' academic life. This paper aims at exploring how critical thinking (CT) can be applied to EFL teaching/learning context at the university level in Benin, in order to develop a deeper and more holistic approach that can enrich students' learning experience. The type of instructional strategies and assessment techniques that can be used to play down the influence of lectures and rote learning, and actively engage students in a learning process that provides them with intellectual challenges were dealt with. The study is exploratory and qualitative and quantitative in nature. University instructors and students were purposively selected as respondents in this research. Data were collected for analysis. Three sources of data: Interview, exam papers and questionnaires were examined with the aid of a statistical tool called SPSS (Statistical Package for Social science). The findings revealed that several barriers impede critical thinking instruction and assessment use in Benin: Lack of training and information, preconceptions, time constraints, lack of appropriate materials, large size classes, inconsistent current assessment methods, lack of motivation and unstimulating linguistic environment, etc. But, even with these hurdles, the majority of university lecturers and students as well are of the views that critical thinking skills have to be promoted in Benin universities if the battle for development is to be won. As a result, the effort is worth the reward. University EFL students in Benin need to be empowered because critical thinking skills offer the potential of effective learning that can make them professional users of information rather than passive receivers.