Critical Thinking: An Exploration Into Students’ Process in Writing Skill

Generally, in the Indonesian context after doing observation, teaching English focused on writing text only like grammar, structure and procedural steps (Afriliyasanti, Cahyono, & Astuti, 2016). They did not measure the participants critical thinking ability in writing skill like focus or problem, reasons to gain the idea, inference which support the reason were true, the situation in making digestion, clarify the argument, and overview to check their writing product (Ennis, 1996).
It is should be an intensive attention for the teacher or lecturer to help students solve their problem in English language teaching process not only in their language ability but also critical thinking skill. The obstacle of writing, students experience in university had barriers to argue in writing. The ability to argue is part of critical thinking and communication skills in order to convince or persuade the reader.
The problem that arise in caused by method of learning which used teachers and lacturers at the time still conventional because the students had been asked to memorize English grammar rules, vocabulary, and apply their translation skills (Wang, Shirly, & Ching, 2012), the method also demonstrated knowledge and content mastery via a test which can jeopardize to their learning because they only have minimal control over this matter (Teemant, 2010). According to (Ataç, 2015) there were some problems faced by the edult students to express critical thinking; (1) Asian EFL students lack critical thinking and individual voice or opinion, and (2) English students cannot express their own ideas in EFL writing.