USING BLOOM’S TAXONOMY TO ENHANCE CRITICAL THINKING AND SPEAKING SKILLS IN SECONDARY EFL CLASSROOMS: A QUALITATIVE CLASSROOM-BASED STUDY

Abstract

Developing students’ critical thinking and speaking skills remains an important goal in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classrooms, particularly in contexts where learners may hesitate to express complex ideas orally. This qualitative classroom-based study explores the use of Bloom’s Taxonomy as a pedagogical framework to scaffold students’ thinking and improve oral participation in secondary English lessons. The intervention was implemented with 48 students across Grade 6 and Grade 8 classes in an EFL context over four instructional sessions. Students engaged in structured speaking activities that progressed through Bloom’s cognitive levels, beginning with lower-order thinking tasks such as recalling and understanding information and moving toward higher-order tasks involving analysis, evaluation, and creative response. Pair discussion and peer feedback were integrated into the activities to encourage collaborative learning and reflective listening. Data were collected through classroom observations, teacher reflective notes, and observations of student interaction patterns. Findings suggest that Bloom’s Taxonomy provided effective cognitive scaffolding that supported students in developing more elaborate spoken responses, participating more actively, and engaging more thoughtfully with peers’ ideas. The inclusion of peer feedback also appeared to promote attentive listening and deeper engagement. This study highlights the practical value of structured questioning frameworks in promoting critical thinking and communicative competence in EFL classrooms.

Keywords

Bloom’s Taxonomy, critical thinking, speaking skills, EFL, peer feedback, qualitative research, classroom practice.