Teaching critical thinking to foster EFL students' ability to distinguish from factual and fake news: Process and result

Teaching Critical Thinking (CT) skills is essential in this 21st-century life when the advancement of information and communications technology (ICT) has brought a new chapter to human civilization: the production of covert messages in mass media and making a limitless space for human interaction through online activity. Therefore, having CT skills becomes urgent in this context. This research aims to describe: a) the process of teaching CT skills to foster EFL students' ability in differentiating between factual and fake news, and b) the cores of CT skills (Identification, Identifying Bias, and Inference) achieved by students seen from students’ answer to the question related to the factual and fake news. This study uses a qualitative case study to describe the "how and what" phenomenon happened. The participants are 36 senior high school students and one teacher selected from class science major (IPA 3), of which the sample was selected by the purposeful sampling. The data was obtained from observation and document analysis. Also, this study was conducted in the twelve-grade EFL reading class at Senior High School in West Java, Indonesia. The findings showed that the teacher combines some theories: cores of CT, CT questions, and steps of teaching CT. During two times meetings of the teaching process, the teacher could implement those theories: cores of CT, CT questions, and steps of teaching CT. a) From the first meeting, the teacher implemented several steps: encouraging students to have an open mind, helping students make connections, teaching students about reliable information, and teaching students to identify the news. In the second meeting, the teaching processes consist of: encouraging students to have an open mind, helping students make connections, and posing a bias question and inference. b) From the students’ exercise analysis, students could get the cores of CT level: high, middle and low. At high ability, students could provide answers with specific explanations. On the other hand, in the middle ability, students only gave general answers without supported by the explanation. Meanwhile, at low ability, students cannot provide answers with their mindset. Some of their answers were based on news titles or headlines. In conclusion, using a factual and fake news as the authentic material could encourage students to think critically. Last but not least, this study is recommended for the teachers who are eager to enhance students’ CT skills