Fostering Kindergarten Students’ Critical Thinking Skills Using Social _ Emotional Learning (SEL) in the EFL Classroom.

Abstract
This study aimed at investigating the effectiveness of implementing a Social Emotional Learning program to foster kindergarten EFL students’ critical thinking skills of a group of 25 kindergarten students from one of Cairo language schools. The quasi-experimental design called the one experimental group design was employed in the present study .A pre-post critical thinking test was given to the experimental group before and after the treatment. The results revealed that the experimental group post-test scores after the treatment outperformed the pre -test in the critical thinking test in favor of the post test. This proved that the SEL program developed participants' critical thinking skills. Learning to think critically may be one of the most important skills that today’s children will need for the future. In today’s rapidly changing world, children need to be critical thinkers who can make sense of information, analyze, compare, contrast, make inferences, and generate higher order skills. Schools play an essential role in preparing our children to become knowledge, responsible, and caring adults. Knowledgeable. Responsible. Caring. Behind each word lies an educational challenge.Each element of this challenge can be enhanced by thoughtful, sustained, and systematic attention to children’s social and emotional learning (SEL).