Ashraf Haji Maibodi - P.h.D Department of English, Maybod Branch, Islamic Azad University, Maybod, Iran

This experimental study examined the effect of critical thinking skills onreading English novels and its influence on EFL learners readingproficiency. Sixty Iranian EFL junior undergraduates participated and wererandomly divided to two groups of thirty each. For the purpose of this studyparticipants in addition to their text book read and received instructions onthe unabridged short novels for one semester. To test the hypothesis, twoindependent t-tests were conducted to see the difference between the twogroups. The results of the study showed that students in group A were morecritically oriented than their counterparts in group B. The pedagogicalimplication of this study suggests that direct instruction in critical thinkinghas an impact on EFL learners’ reading proficiency. The findings of thisstudy revealed that there was a significant improvement in students’attitudes, confidence, and interest especially, in their novel-reading ability.Keywords: Critical thinking, Critical literacy, Reading proficiency, Englishnovels, Language awareness

Critical thinking, Critical literacy, Reading proficiency, Englishnovels, Language awareness