EFL TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS OF STRATEGIES TO FOSTER CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS IN ONLINE EDUCATION

Abstract

The significance of critical thinking skills is highly recognized in foreign language teaching worldwide and in the Kazakhstani state curriculum of secondary education as well. However, the COVID-19 crisis obliged most educational institutions to adopt an online form of instruction, which is new for most teachers. Thus, this study analyses the Kazakhstani EFL teachers’ perceptions of fostering critical thinking strategies in online teaching during the pandemics with the aim of investigating how EFL teachers view the core concepts of critical thinking skills and the strategies implemented during online lessons. Employing semi-structured interviews, qualitative data were collected from ten non-randomly selected EFL teachers. The findings reveal that teachers are aware of the core concepts of critical thinking skills and the strategies that can be adapted and implemented online. However, while using certain strategies to develop critical thinking skills, teachers encounter challenges that require greater support to overcome.