An Investigation Into Applying Critical Thinking Skills To The Process Of Writing Argumentative Essays Among Third - Year Students Of The faculty Of English, Ufls-Ud.

Abstract

Writing is one of the four fundamental abilities that a successful language user needs to master, and learning to write argumentative essays is on high demand with the increased popularity of standardized tests like IELTS or VSTEP. It is widely known that critical thinking skills can help enhance the quality of learners’ argumentative essays. Since most prior studies have independently focused on either writing skill or critical thinking, the current research aims to investigate how students perceive and have applied critical thinking skills to their argumentative writing at the University of Foreign Language Studies (UFLS), University of Danang (UD). A multiple-choice survey was given to 125 third-year English majors of the Faculty of English, and 25 of them then participated in an interview to clarify their choices. Based on the findings, this study offers recommendations to both teachers and students to improve the application of critical thinking skills in writing argumentative essays.