A study on the relationship of critical thinking activities and speaking skills of the 6th graders in turkey

The Ministry of National Education (MoNE) paved the way for radical changes in the curriculum of education in terms of meeting the needs of 21st century skills. Concurrent with these changes, stated in the English Lesson Curriculum (2018), "English lesson curriculum has been revised in accordance with the general objectives of Turkish National Education as defined in the Basic Law of the National Education No. 1739, along with the Main Principles of Turkish National Education" (p.3). Moreover, the transition from the 8+4 educational model to the new 4+4+4 model has been arised as a requisite of planned curricula change in Turkish Educational System. The new English language curriculum was designated in accordance with the principles and descriptors of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, and Assessment (CEFR). In line with the principles of (CEFR) within the context of life-long learning objective, 21st century abilities are crucial to keep up with up-to-date curricula in accordance with students' needs in a Knowledge age. Even if teaching these skills in a class environment can be challenging, The Critical Thinking Skills (CTSs) contribute learners an insightful and commonsense guide to become self-motivated and novative learners in foreign language learning as well. There has been a plethora of studies on the positive correlation between the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) and CTSs within the concept of tertiary education. Yet, few have been conducted in secondary education. To this end, in this study, a mixed method research design was conducted to find out whether any effect of the Critical Thinking Activities (CTA) on speaking skills of the 6th graders. It was conducted for 16 weeks with 6th graders including the pilot study during 2017-2018 Autumn period of the Academic Year, at İsmail Ayşe Önük Secondary School in Adana, Turkey. The classes were chosen randomly, one of which was assigned as the experimetal group (20), and the other as the control one (21). The quantitative data were gathered from the instruments consisting of a CT Test and an English A Level Speaking Test as pre- and post-tests to track possible alterations in students' speaking and critical thinking levels. SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Science) software version 20.0 was used to analyze quantitative data. As for qualitative instruments, teacher's reflective journal, students' reflective journals, and portfolios were utilized in order to observe the students' feeling and perceptions about the usage of the CTA. The findings of the study indicated that using CTA in EFL classroom enhanced the speaking skills and CT levels of 6th graders conspicuously at İsmail-Ayşe Önük Secondary School, Ceyhan-Adana, Turkey. Keywords: Critical thinking activities, English as a foreign language, Common European framework of reference for languages: learning, teaching, assessment, English lesson curriculum, 21st century skills, speaking skills, mixed method reseach design.