Developing Critical Thinking Skill Through Extensive Reading: Uzbek Teachers’ Perspectives

This article explores teachers’ attitudes towards extensive reading, critical thinking skill, and more importantly, towards developing critical thinking skill through extensive reading strategies. students are facing different obstacles that may hinder their learning process and development. One of those problems can be the lack of sufficient processing of information, which may lead to misunderstanding and misinterpreting any given material. In other words, they lack the ability to think critically. In order to carry out this research, a quantitative study has been conducted. Specially-designed questionnaire was administered to thirty-four English teachers of different educational establishments. The analysis of the questionnaire revealed that teachers and are aware of the existence of critical thinking skill and stress the importance of extensive reading in developing cognitive skills. Moreover, they showed a positive attitude towards developing critical thinking skill through extensive reading, however, the majority of students tend to ignore reading and abandon it and they are not trying to develop their critical thinking skill neither through extensive reading nor through other tools. Following the research findings, it is recommended to raise students’ awareness about the importance of extensive reading as well as critical thinking skill in foreign language teaching and learning. More importantly, to implement extensive reading programs that can help learners enhance their critical thinking skills.

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