Higher-Order Thinking Skills (HOTS)-based literacy media: An innovative learning strategy to promote the secondary students’ social awareness

In this high-technology era, students are increasingly inclined to use digital services such as Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. Unsurprisingly, most of them are becoming more addicted to using their digital devices. Unfortunately, the accessed contents are not always suitable and reliable for their needs and ages. Therefore, they absorb all information directly without filtering the messages. This study scrutinizes the implementation of Higher-Order Thinking Skills (HOTS)-based media literacy to promote the critical social awareness of junior high school students in an EFL classroom. A case study was employed as a research design involving one eighth-grader class and one EFL teacher as participants. The data were gathered via classroom observations, interviews with the teacher and the students, and document analysis. The data were then analyzed qualitatively by referring to the principles of teaching media literacy, Higher-Order Thinking Skills, and social awareness. The findings of this study revealed that the teacher applied some principles in teaching media literacy, namely introducing general concepts, making generalizations, analyzing information, evaluating the content of information, and drawing a conclusion from the students’ actions. These principles consequently promoted the students’ critical social awareness, including emotional awareness, self-regulation, empathy, active listening, cooperation, and respect. Considering such benefits, HOTS-based media literacy can be used as an alternative learning strategy to promote the students’ critical social awareness in EFL classrooms.