Abstract Summary
This presentation demonstrates how pre-service language teachers perceived and taught critical thinking during their teaching practicum in different primary schools in Hong Kong. The findings revealed the personal and contextual challenges faced by the participants and how they overcame such challenges to integrate critical thinking with language education.
Abstract :
In the information age, which is characterized by accelerating technological advancement and cultural exchanges, critical thinking (CT) has been emphasized as an integral part of education, including language education.Despite a growing body of literature on CT and its teaching in language classrooms, little attention has been paid to language teachers’ perceptions and practice in CT teaching. In particular, we know little about how pre-service teachers learn to teach CT in current second language teacher education programs including their teaching practicums. Drawing on data from individual interviews and relevant documents (e.g., teaching plans and reflections), this study explores a group of pre-service language teachers’ perceptions and practice regarding CT and its teaching during their three-month teaching practicum in different primary schools in Hong Kong. The findings revealed a set of personal and contextual challenges faced by the participants in learning to teach CT as future language teachers. For instance, they reported a divide between their previous teacher education courses and the local school reality, which brought them negative feelings and impeded their implementation and development of CT pedagogy. However, by exercising their agency and supported by their school mentors, some participants managed to overcome the challenges and used contextually appropriate tasks and materials to promote students’ language learning and CT. Based on the findings, the paper proposes a tripartite framework with a threefold perspective on cultivating student teachers’ CT through language teacher education, transforming their beliefs about CT in language education, as well as fostering their professional competence to teach CT. The three aspects need to be systematically and coherently integrated in pre-service language teacher education practice in order to prepare competent teachers with both a critical mind and CT oriented pedagogy.
