CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS FOR LEARNING ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE IN LANGUAGE TEACHER TRAINING PROGRAMS AT THE POPULAR UNIVERSITY OF CESAR

Abstract

The development of critical thinking skills within the framework of language teacher training gains an important value as a transversal axis in the new curricular designs, not only for strengthening communication skills, but also their applicability from the language itself and its functionality in the life of the professionals that society demands. Therefore, we sought to understand the importance of developing critical thinking skills for learning English as a foreign language in Language Teacher Training Programs at the Popular University of Cesar. Based on what proposed by Albert (2007) in the procedure of the phenomenological investigation, allowing inquiring from the voices of the social actors: teachers and students, teachers in training, through research interviews and questionnaires designed for this purpose, together with to the documentary review. The analysis of the findings made it possible to determine that, even when teachers and students give great significance to information search, reflection and analysis skills, they do not so much with others such as argumentation, interpretation, setting positions, decision making and contributing ideas. Additionally, this significance remains in theory and intention, since it is not transferred to pedagogical practice with strategies and activities that promote and activate critical thinking skills for the effectiveness of learning English as a foreign language in higher education, which requires go beyond the grammatical and phonetic, to achieve an efficient communication of ideas.