Cultivating Critical Thinking through Literature Circle Activities: A Case Study in the Chinese EFL Classroom

Fostering Students' Critical Thinking Through Literature Circles in EFL Classrooms: A Contribution to Sustainable Development Goal 4

Adapting Literature Circles for Critical Thinking in Indonesian EFL Classrooms: A Qualitative Case Study Aligned with SDG 4

Objective: To investigate how Literature Circles can be pedagogically adapted to the Indonesian English as a Foreign Language (EFL) context to foster students' critical thinking while accommodating curriculum requirements, students' language proficiency, and classroom learning needs in support of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4. Method: A qualitative case study was conducted at an Indonesian senior high school involving one English teacher and twelve eleventh-grade EFL students. Data were collected through classroom observations, semi-structured interviews, and document analysis, including lesson plans, students' worksheets, dialogue journals, and learning products. The data were analyzed using coding, categorization, thematic analysis, and triangulation. Results: The findings revealed that Literature Circles were successfully adapted through modifications to instructional procedures, collaborative learning stages, reading materials, and role assignments, including the addition of Text Analyzer and Grammar Pointer roles to align with the Indonesian genre-based curriculum. These adaptations promoted six dimensions of critical thinking interpretation, analysis, inference, evaluation, explanation, and self-regulation while enhancing students' affective, cognitive, and behavioral engagement in collaborative learning. Novelty: The study proposes a contextualized adaptation model of Literature Circles for Indonesian secondary EFL classrooms, demonstrating how collaborative reading can be integrated with curriculum demands to foster critical thinking, student engagement, and the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4) through student-centered learning.

Adapting Literature Circles to Foster Critical Thinking Skills in Indonesian EFL Classrooms: A Qualitative Case Study toward SDG 4

Fostering Critical Thinking Through Creative Teaching: A Comparative Case Study of Stand-Alone and Infused Approaches in Two Malaysian Classrooms

The decline of critical thinking in the modern world is a growing concern for educators, who increasingly ask how such thinking can be deliberately cultivated within existing school structures rather than left to chance. This study examines how two teachers in Malaysia use creative teaching to foster critical thinking, and how their students respond, through two contrasting approaches: a stand-alone method, in which critical thinking is taught as its own subject, and an infused method, in which it is embedded within an existing subject. Using a qualitative multiple case study design, the research followed two classrooms in the Kuala Lumpur area: an international school in Gombak that teaches critical thinking directly through Hikmah Pedagogy, a stand-alone Philosophy-for-Children-based approach, and a school in Ampang that follows a Saudi national curriculum and infuses critical thinking into its mathematics lessons using the Six Thinking Hats technique. Data were gathered through classroom observation, interviews with teachers and students, and content analysis, and were evaluated against Duron et al.’s (2006) five-step framework for teaching critical thinking and Paul and Elder's (2002) model of critical thinking. Both teachers were found to align with all five steps of Duron et al.'s framework despite using different methods. Three factors emerged as central to how well critical thinking was fostered in either setting: the teacher's skill in questioning, the consistency with which critical thinking was practised over time, and the choice of stimulus material or anchor problems used to prompt it. Benefits reported by teachers and students included stronger academic reasoning and improved social skills such as respectful disagreement, while the most significant constraint in both classrooms was insufficient lesson time to fully develop and assess every student's thinking.

Integrating Critical Thinking into EFL Speaking Instruction: A Qualitative Case Study in Indonesian Higher Education

This study examines how critical thinking is integrated into EFL speaking instruction in higher education. A qualitative design was employed to gain an in-depth understanding of lecturers' critical thinking and speaking instruction. The study was conducted at Muhammadiyah University of Bone and involved 4 lecturers and 14 students. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, classroom observations, and document analysis of lesson plans. The data were analyzed inductively using thematic analysis to identify recurring patterns in lecturers’ perceptions and instructional strategies. The analysis focused on three interconnected stages of instruction: planning, action, and evaluation. The findings reveal that lecturers perceive critical thinking in speaking as the ability to analyze issues, justify opinions with evidence, and respond thoughtfully to counterarguments. Students’ classroom participation also showed that critical thinking emerged through their ability to ask questions, compare viewpoints, justify opinions with evidence, respond to counterarguments, and reflect on the quality of their oral performance. They believe that students' speaking skills should be evaluated not only on fluency, pronunciation, and grammatical accuracy but also on their capacity to analyze issues, build logical arguments, use evidence, engage with differing viewpoints, and reflect critically on ideas.

Enhancing Critical Thinking Through Community Immersion: Evidence from Grade 8 Araling Panlipunan Students

Critical thinking is recognized as one of the essential competencies learners must develop to address real-world challenges. This study investigated the effectiveness of community immersion as an instructional approach in enhancing the critical thinking skills of Grade 8 students in Araling Panlipunan at Mountain Province General Comprehensive High School during School Year 2023–2024. Using a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest control group design, two Grade 8 classes participated. The experimental group engaged in structured community immersion activities integrated into classroom instruction, while the control group received conventional classroom-based instruction. Data were collected through written and oral assessments, rubrics, classroom observations, interviews, and focus group discussions. Statistical analysis using mean, standard deviation, t-tests, ANCOVA, and effect sizes revealed significant improvements in the experimental group. Qualitative themes highlighted authentic connection, confidence in expression, and problem-solving mindset. Findings demonstrate that community immersion provides authentic learning experiences that strengthen students’ analytical, reflective, and problem-solving abilities. Integrating community immersion into Social Studies instruction is an effective strategy for promoting critical thinking and meaningful learning among secondary school students.