The power of reflective journal writing for university students from the EFL perspective

English as a foreign language (EFL) university students use reflective journals as learning logs to express or capture their ideas within a scientific conceptual framework. The objectives of this research are to (1) describe the power of reflective journal writing in communicating ideas, and (2) identify the aspects of reflective journal writing that aid learning in an EFL context. The reflective journals were written by 21 EFL university students. This research takes a qualitative approach, with the primary data coming from several reflective journals (N=124) while the secondary data coming from EFL students’ interviews (N=15). The research results showed that reflective journals were useful for students to make critical reflections and self-discovery responses to writing topics. The students learned to focus on writing components such as order, unity, coherence, cohesiveness, content, and organization of ideas through reflective journal writing. The students’ perspectives on aspects of reflective journal writing were primarily concerned with macro-and micro-level linguistic issues, as evidenced from the interview results. Writing a reflective journal necessitated their ability to reformulate thoughts, provide details, and solve problems. Furthermore, critical thinking, metacognitive skills, and self-reflections became increasingly important in helping the students to develop their ability to write reflective journals

The The Impact of Pandemic Writing on EFL Students' Critical Thinking Skills: An Exploratory Study: English

Pandemic writing contributes significantly to online writing activities in which EFL students build a solid foundation of critical thinking skills, not to mention their massive impact. This study aims to describe (1) aspects of pandemic writing that influence students' critical thinking skills during the COVID-19 period and (2) the contributions of pandemic writing to EFL students’ writing skills. This exploratory research involved thirty participants who were interviewed in-depth to obtain more meaningful information and insights using a purposive sample technique. During the analytical steps of sorting and comparing data, principles, and types and considering their relationships by composing notes from interview transcriptions, the data were reorganized and analyzed to elicit codes, data, categories, or narratives. Results show that the impact of pandemic writing on EFL students' critical thinking skills is mainly based on learning autonomy (30%), critical inquiries (6.7%), synchronous platforms (10%), rhetorical functions (16.7%), critical mindsets (13.3%) and cognitive framework (23.3%).   Pandemic writing and its componential parts determine the development of EFL students' critical thinking skills, which range from the impact of brainstorming ideas to refined steps of revising paragraphs and the essay as a whole.   Keywords— pandemic writing; critical thinking skills; cognitive framework; rhetorical functions; critical mindsets; problem-solving