Forum for Linguistic Studies 2023; 5(2): 1706. Original Article 1 Higher-Order Thinking Skills (HOTS)-based literacy media: An innovative learning strategy to promote the secondary students’ social awareness Sri Setyarini * , Herli Salim, Pupung Purnawarman English Education Department, Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia, Bandung 40154, Indonesia * Corresponding author: Sri Setyarini, setyarini.english@upi.edu ABSTRACT: 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. KEYWORDS: critical social awareness; English as a foreign language; Higher-Order Thinking Skills; junior secondary students; media literacy 1. Introduction Media presence has recently reached all levels of society. As a source of information, media have influenced a wide variety of audiences. People in a mediatized community believe digital technologies and media play critical roles in learning, daily life practices, and well-being (Hobbs, 2010; Rasi et al., 2021). It is a fact that media significantly impact society. It reflects the reality of society and how it works (Singh and Pandey, 2017). Technological advancements allow people to expand their thoughts and facilitate the dissemination of information to a larger audience. However, notwithstanding its perceived benefits, media have several negative impacts, especially in ARTICLE INFO Received: 14 May 2023 Accepted: 24 July 2023 Available online: 16 August 2023 http://dx.doi.org/10.59400/fls.v5i2.1706 Copyright © 2023 Author(s). Forum for Linguistic Studies is published by Academic Publishing Pte. Ltd. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/