Developing Intercultural Awareness through Analytical and Critical Thinking among First-Year LMD Students of English as a Foreign Language at Batna-2 University. Doctorat thesis,(2019) Université de Batna 2.
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2019-09-22
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
Intercultural awareness is one of the prerequisites of the active global citizen. Indeed, it enhances understanding and facilitates communication. Henceforth, developing cultural and intercultural awareness should be effectively targetted by all Teaching/learning processes, particularly in foreign language education. However, this is not the case of the Department of English at Batna-2 University. Despite the fact of being exposed to the subject of Culture and Civilisation, which is expected to raise students’ awareness towards the British and the American patterns of culture and propel them to respect cultural differences, learners have the propensity to generate contradictory comportments that might be diagnosed as symptoms of intercultural awareness deficiency. This investigation attempts to find a way out of this problem. It explores the impact of promoting critical and analytical thinking skills on intercultural awareness among first-year students of English. It hypothesises that stimulating critical thinking skills through the use of Paul’s model in CCL lectures might help students develop intercultural awareness. To test the aforementioned hypothesis, an experimentation involving two randomly selected groups of fifty students each, experimental and control, has been conducted. Various instrumentations namely tests, opinionnaire and observation were used to collect the needed information. The data obtained were analysed qualitatively and quantitatively through factor analysis and T-test. The results demonstrate the efficacy of critical thinking in developing intercultural awareness. Additionally, they suggest that the model used was comprehensible and applicable. Furthermore, the data highlight that critical thinking helps students change their attitudes towards cultural differences and enhances the quality of their thinking so asthey get more engaged in the process of learning. Ergo, this study highly calls for the integration of critical thinking in all subjects meant to teach English as a foreign language.