Assessing critical discourse analysis (cda) skills of esl undergraduates in an english writing classroom

The field of ELT is constantly witnessing the introduction of new instructional approaches, one such perhaps recent initiative is critical discourse analysis (CDA). Accordingly, the present study was an attempt to investigate the implementation of CDA instructions in an English writing classroom and its role in developing self-regulation and self-reflection skills among ESL learners of undergraduate level. This study was designed to investigate the significance of developing students’ critical language awareness through explicit teaching methodology of some procedures of critical discourse analysis that might play a significant role in producing efficient learners who are efficient interpreters and assessors of written discourse. The study was planned to discover the procedure of encoding and decoding of the writer’s message and to teach students the skill of inferencing, evaluating and explaining through higher-order thinking processes where they supposedly monitor, regulate and reflect upon their own writing and that of the writer’s. The learners were their own evaluators, the researcher observed through their writings the capability to activate and apply their critical knowledge while interpreting and assessing the text, as well as the extent to which the learners self-regulate and self-reflect over their written assignments. It was witnessed that the motivation level of learners enhanced and they were able to decode the message of the text. The learners were observed to self-monitor their writing. They were able to deal with challenging tasks rather than mere passive tasks. It was concluded that critical language awareness, self-regulation, self-reflection can be developed through familiarising with CDA techniques in the form of continuous writing practices in classroom.