ENHANCING EFL HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS' CRITICAL READING SKILLSTHROUGH VISUAL THINKING

Abstract

The aims of this research are as follows: (1) to investigate the effects of Visual Thinking (VT) on the English critical reading skills of students majoring in English; (2) to investigate the effects of VT on the English critical reading skills of students majoring in Engineer Artificial Intelligence (EAI); (3) to compare the effects of VT on English critical reading skills of students majoring in English to those majoring in EAI; and (4) to explore the opinions of EFL students on learning about critical reading skills through VT. The participants were 81 Grade 10 students selected by purposive sampling and divided into two groups: 44 students majoring in English and 37 students majoring in EAI. The instruments in this study included lesson plans, an English critical reading test, a questionnaire, and interviews. The quantitative data was analyzed by mean scores, standard deviations, t-test analysis, and the analysis of covariance were used for analysis. The quantitative data was analyzed by content analysis. The results revealed that the post-test mean scores of both groups were significantly higher than the pre-test mean scores. Moreover, there were no statistically significant differences in terms of students majoring in English and EAI. This suggested that VT had positive effects on critical reading skills of students from different backgrounds. The questionnaire and interview responses also showed that students favored this teaching method. This indicates that VT can be an effective method to improve the critical reading skills of EFL high school students.

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