EFL STUDENTS’ ATTITUDE TO CRITICAL READING

. Critical thinking skills are one of the key requirements for a modern specialist in the professional world nowadays. Applying critical thinking while reading texts must become the essential approach to dealing with information. This study focuses on an exploratory investigation of the students’ attitude to critical reading tasks at the English classes. The present survey aims at exploring low-intermediate students’ attitude to critical reading assignments used at the English classes. The main tasks are the following: 1) to carry out a survey on students’ attitude towards critical reading and critical reading instruction at university; 2) to test the students’ critical reading skills; 3) to interview the students on their assessment of the reading tasks to identify the habits of mind available to develop their critical reading skills. The data were collected from the students’ questionnaire, the critical reading test and the students’ interviews. The findings support the results of the foreign researchers’ surveys about the lack of curiosity, relevant habits of mind and the majority of textbooks containing factual tasks which hinder the development of the readers’ critical attitude to information. Although the students admitted the general importance of critical reading, they did not seem to understand the essence of these skills and showed indifference to critical reading tasks during the second and third stages of the experiment. Thus, the prospects of the further research aim at designing and implementation of a reading English texts program for university low-intermediate students which could involve more critical reading assignments to promote critical habits of mind.