Critical Thinking: Its Representation in Indonesian ELT Textbooks and Education

My original contribution to knowledge consists in generating a new critical thinking framework that can be used to investigate the elements of critical thinking in textbooks. The framework, however, can also be used as a guideline for teachers who are concerned with the development of learners’ critical thinking skills. Critical thinking has been included in an Indonesian government document as an educational objective; however, it is currently neglected and not seriously disseminated in schools.

This study attempts to investigate to what extent critical thinking has been manifested in textbooks in Indonesia and to what extent Indonesian senior secondary school students are ready for the teaching of critical thinking skills. To this end, the study investigates the elements of critical thinking contained in Indonesian ELT textbooks and students’ responses to modified materials containing elements of critical thinking. Three methods are adopted: content analysis, qualitative analysis of students’ written responses, and interviews. Predetermined analytic categories are used to analyse nine Indonesian ELT textbooks used by senior secondary schools. The categories have been created as a result of evaluating, examining, and synthesising Bloom’s and Freeman’s critical thinking taxonomies, critical thinking strategies from empirical studies, critical thinking programmes created by critical thinking authorities and critical thinking tests.

The findings of the content analysis show that the textbooks examined do contain a few elements of critical thinking. Critical thinking questions occupy 15.81% of all of the questions analysed. As the literature has stated that facilitating students’ critical thinking needs to be progressive, the findings suggest that most activities in the textbooks can be used at a basic level in scaffolding to promote students’ critical thinking skills and that more critical thinking activities must be developed by teachers. Promoting Indonesian students’ critical thinking skills is possible as the findings of materials implementation and interviews indicate that the students have the potential to be critical. The findings also show that students are ready to accept the teaching of critical thinking skills.