Throughout this course we have gone through several aspects involved in culture and civilization. We also found out the diverse ways we see other people and face situations in life. What’s more we learned the importance of critical thinking in education. Due to the latter, I have concluded that without the ability of critical thinking we would not be able to get the gist of out of the information examined in all our subjects. Thus, I will write about critical thinking in EFL students and to what extent culture impacts our teaching.

According to Chance, Critical Thinking is "The ability to analyze facts, generate and organize ideas, defend opinions, make comparisons, draw inferences, evaluate arguments and solve problems"( 1986, p.6). In my opinion, that is an accurate and very close definition of the whole concept and aim of being critical. Therefore, when learning, it is not only important to know something by heart, like rote learning, but to be an active subject. By this I mean, one needs to question oneself: how? Why? What's my input in this subject? Is this a reliable source? Etc. So, it is a powerful skill we should all be able to manage.



It takes discipline to be efficiently critical, though. That is why teachers’ should aspire to model critical thinking skills as a process, so as to progressively provide hints, questions, activities and so on for students to digest and internalize what’s being learnt. But how? We should explicitly pass on our own thought processes by explaining how we come to certain solution or reason something, evaluating evidence given, as well as sources and probing their credibility, and also by telling them which things confused us or complicated us while studying or trying to understand something. Activities like grouping students, collaborative work, in which they “think aloud” and are able to widen their options, regarding views and ideas related to the main topic of study. We could develop critical thinking through questionnaires and interviews, through research projects or reflective journals too. This way we would also develop self-awareness and metacognitive strategies.


However, is not only important to know how, but why critical thinking is so important for our EFL students. As mentioned in the introduction, believing that memorizing facts is the right way people should learn is a completely mistaken belief. In contrast, we all know how important is to contextualize information in order to accurately internalize it. Especially when teaching EFL, we can’t pretend teaching grammar as a set of disconnected rules will be instantly or even accurately learned. We need to contextualize information for making learning more meaningful for our students. That is the why is important. We are empowering students, not only by helping them understand what has been shown to them, but through building up their knowledge without guiding them the entire time, we should promote independent thinkers at the same time.On the other hand, Culture can impact TEFL in the sense that we are immersed in a culture so we are used to certain ways of life in our society. Still, when teaching L2, in this case English, we can encourage students’ interest in the target countries, where the language is spoken. If we’re promoting critical thinking, we can take part through guiding our students’ to open their minds when faced to other cultures. Perhaps, they won’t go to the UK or Canada, but we should be able to transmit knowledge about those so they can relate to it. I would say it will be beneficial for our students’ knowledge of cultural facts. Consequently, it plays an important role in general education. Besides, we’re increasing tolerance towards, religions, ideologies, customs, people etc. I mean, as we are teaching aspects of other cultures we are helping them being aware of their own culture, so they critically think over these facts. This will be helpful because they’ll be able to have a say when asked about diverse topics.

In conclusion, as a future English teacher I believe I have the chance to encourage critical thinking while teaching different social and cultural contexts so as to put this skill into practice. Giving them the opportunity to know and understand other countries’ cultures will enable them to feel as equal and intelligent as people who have travelled everywhere. Teachers ought to use the power of promoting, encouraging and helping our students in a beneficial and constructive way for them.