ABSTRACT

Maulana, Rizki. Multiple case study on how Pesantren English teachers foster critical
thinking in the classroom context, 2023.

Critical thinking (CT) has become widely recognized in the last decade as one of the essential
abilities for the 21st century. Hence, teachers in various learning contexts including in
pesantren are mandated to embed the notion in their teaching practice. As teaching is
contextually bounded, information on how pesantren teachers perceive and practice CT
remains scarce. To fill the gap, this study focused on investigating how Pesantren English
teachers understand critical thinking (CT), how they apply their understanding in a classroom
setting, and barriers encountered by the teachers in promoting CT. This qualitative research
involved 4 English language teachers and 86 students in Pesantren. This study employed
multiple case study since the focus of this study is an in-depth investigation of teachers’
understanding CT of and how they apply it in the classroom setting and the barriers they have.
The research instruments used in this study were interviews, observation, questionnaires, FGD,
and document analysis. The result shows that Pesantren teachers understand CT as a thinking
skill perspective and their teaching of students' critical thinking reflects this. Most of the
teachers use question techniques and writing strategies to foster students’ CT. Both strategies
have proven to be effective in fostering CT, however, the teachers considered that the
inhibiting factors were the students’ lack of vocabulary and students could not put the ideas
into words.

Keywords: Critical thinking, Pesantren teacher, English language teaching.