Teaching Critical Thinking through Literature Instruction The Case of Second Year LMD Teachers and Students of English at Ammar Thelidji University, Laghouat

Abstract

Teaching critical thinking skills is considered as method that may help EFL teachers to improve the power of thinking in students. This dissertation seeks on the importance of developing critical thinking in literary classes especially at reading and writing about literary works. The current study emphasizes also on the great role that literary works play for the development of critical thinking of 50 Second Year Students at the English Department – University of Laghouat. This research is divided into three chapters: the first chapter includes the Theoretical Development in Teaching Literature; it provides the reader with the definition of the conception of Literature and language teaching besides the used techniques to teach literature. The second chapter deals with Theory and Approaches of Critical Thinking. The third chapter involves the analysis and the interpretations of the Questionnaires for both teachers and students. The findings of the research showed that teaching literary works such as short stories is considered a suitable tool to teach higher – level thinking skills and improving them. Hence, it is required to be included in the educational curriculum