The present study intended to investigate the impact of using the two reflective practices of Personal Experience Narrative (PEN) versus Reflective Journal (RJ) writing in English on enhancing the in-service EFL teachers’ Critical Thinking Ability (CTA) in Iran. Sixty (36 female and 24 male) EFL teachers selected based on the convenience sampling were randomly divided into equal numbers making up two independent experimental PEN and RJ groups. The participants were initially pre-tested on the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal-Form A (WGCTA-FA) by Watson and Glaser (1980). The comparison of the pre-test scores via the independent samples t-test indicated no statistically significant difference between the CTA of the two groups at the onset of the study. Then the participants were given five short stories including Chopin’s The story of an hour (1894), O. Henry’s The last leaf (1907), Colby’s Confessions of a gallomaniac (1941), Achebe’s Dead men’s path (1953), and Grace’s Butterflies (1987). The PEN participants wrote PENs in response to themes of stories, whereas the RJ participants inscribed their reflections on the same stories in RJs. Subsequently, the participants in both groups were post-tested on the WGCTA-FA. The comparison of the post-test scores via the independent samples t-test showed that the PEN participants significantly improved in their inference and deduction ability. It should be mentioned that no statistically significant difference was observed between the post-test scores on recognition of assumptions, interpretation, and evaluation of arguments sub-components.
 

Keywords: Critical Thinking, Personal Experience Narrative, Reflective Journal, Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal-Form A

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