An Investigation of the Impact of Teaching Critical Thinking to develop the Speaking Skill of Arabic language learners

Critical thinking has gained paramount importance in foreign language teaching. Accordingly, enhancing and honing critical thinking is considered one of the most important requisites in the teaching and learning of a foreign language, which has encouraged teachers to teach it in the best possible methods. Therefore, the present study, through the quasi-experimental approach, attempted to determine the effect of critical thinking on developing the speaking skill of Arabic language learners. The study selected 50 undergraduate Arabic language students from Imam Khomeini International University as the participants. There were two equal-sized groups of 25 learners: a control group and an experimental one. The control group studied the speaking skill according to traditional strategies, and the experimental group studied this skill based on critical thinking skills. The findings revealed that those students who received instruction on critical thinking strategies did better on the oral interview post-test. Hence, it was concluded that critical thinking training had a crucial impact on promoting speaking ability of Iranian Arabic language learners.