The relationship between critical thinking and Iraqi EFL learners' productive skills

الملخص EN

Critical thinking (henceforth CT) is a debatable topic in all educational fields and, specifically, in the field of foreign language teaching.

In the field of English Language Teaching (ELT), scholars have recently been investigating whether critical thinking skills (henceforth CTSs) predict language proficiency so that instructors can include CT activities in their lesson plans.

Before conducting this paper, it was unknown if CTSs could predict Iraqi EFL learners' language proficiency, consisting of their productive skills (speaking and writing).

Based on Krashen's (1982) language acquisition theory and Watson Glaser's Critical Thinking Appraisal (WGCTA) (2012), the researcher assessed the CTSs of the participants, who were 80 third-year EFL learners from the Department of English, College of Arts, University of Basra.

Besides, the researcher measured the participants' speaking and writing skills.

The results of the data that were collected showed that CTSs significantly predicted speaking skills (B = 0.21, p =.002), as well as writing skills (B = 0.30, p <.001).

The results showed that a one-unit increase of CTSs increased the value of speaking scores by 0.21 and a one-unit increase of CTSs increased the value of writing scores by 0.3.

To summarize, the findings showed that CT was a strong predictor of both speaking skills and writing skills.