UTILIZING REFLECTIVE JOURNAL TO RAISE CRITICAL LANGUAGE AWARENESS: A CRITICAL LITERACY PRACTICE IN A READING CLASSROOM

This study embarks upon probing the effect of critical oriented reading strategies on efl learners through reflecting journal writings. To undertake the study, 109 homogenized male and female students of english language literature were selected out of a subject pool of 160 students due to administering an oxford placement test (opt) among them. Then, they were randomly classified into a critical (experimental) and non-critical (control) group. Both groups were exposed to the same novel, namely jane eyre. During the intervention program, participants in the critical group were encouraged to use critical reading strategies (crs) while the non-critical group received the conventional treatment in reading skill. Moreover, students in critical group were invited to write reflective journals to evaluate the effectiveness of crs in terms of their interactions, personal, and social development. Using thematic analysis, a number of themes emerged that illustrated the contribution of the crs to learners' literal, personal, social development and self-awareness. The results give empirical support for the positive effect of critical oriented reading strategies on enabling learners to recognize, make clear, compare and solve ambiguities in the texts.