Secondary school students' critical thinking within the scope of distance education during covid-19 pandemic

الملخص EN

The announcement of schools' closure due to Covid-19 pandemic for an undetermined period of time left Baccalaureate (Bac) students in a complete uncertainty as they were surely not prepared for such a situation.

Having an exam by the end of the academic year, Bac students, had to adapt to distance education and its vagaries instead of the habitual face-to-face instruction.

The present exploratory study investigates how both secondary school (SC) EFL Teachers and (SC) FL students have managed to prepare for the Bac exam in the light of the pandemic and distance education as well as the place of critical thinking (CT) in distance instruction.

For that, in parallel with the literature review, the researcher opted for a qualitative approach using questionnaires as research tools, one addressed to 102 3rd year SC FL students and another to 121 SC EFL teachers.

The findings showed that CT is important to distance teaching but distance instruction has a long way to go in the field of education in Algeria.