critical thinking in the foreign language classroom

MINI REVIEW article

English as a foreign language teachers’ critical thinking ability and l2 students’ classroom engagement.

• School of Foreign Studies, Hebei University, Baoding, China

Critical thinking has been the focus of many studies considering the educational and social contexts. However, English as a foreign language (EFL) context is the one in which studies about critical thinking and its link to classroom engagement have not been carried out as much as expected. Hence, this study investigated to understand the association between EFL teachers’ critical thinking ability and students’ classroom engagement to get a broader understanding of the impact critical thinking has on students’ success. To do this, firstly, both variables of this study are defined and explicated. Then, the relationship between critical thinking and students’ classroom engagement is discussed. Finally, the implications of this research and also its limitations along with suggestions for further studies are put forward.

Introduction

“Critical thinking enables individuals to use standards of argumentation, rules of logic, standards of practical deliberation, standards governing inquiry and justification in specialized areas of study, standards for judging intellectual products, etc.” ( Bailin et al., 1999 , p. 291). Paul and Elder (2007) conceptualized critical thinking as the art of analysis and evaluation, considering the point that it can be improved since a quality life needs the quality of thinking. Facione (2011) noted that happiness cannot be guaranteed even if good judgment is practiced and critical thinking is enhanced; however, it undoubtedly offers more opportunities for this goal to be achieved. It has been stressed that autonomy can be shaped through critical thinking ability and one’s learning process can critically be evaluated ( Delmastro and Balada, 2012 ). According to a study conducted by Marin and Pava (2017) , English as a foreign language (EFL) critical thinker has the following characteristics: they are active, continuously asking questions, and seeking information which helps them build associations between L2 learning and other features of everyday life. They describe as people, having the capability to analyze and organize thoughts that can be expressed through speaking and writing. They almost always tries to put what has learned before into practice. Beyond doubt, in order to enhance critical thinking skill in EFL learners, teachers should consider the point that teaching is not just about grammar and vocabulary; instead, it concentrates on enhancing teaching, encouraging to be creative, encourage to learn independently, strategies for making decisions and evaluating himself. Similarly, opportunities must be provided by the educators to provide a learning environment in which autonomous learning, active engagement, reflection on learners’ learning process, and L2 advancement are emphasized, for instance, task-based activities. Thus, this study is different from other studies since the focus is placed on teachers’ critical thinking ability to help students thrive rather than students’ critical thinking ability. The reason is that differentiates it from the previous studies is that providing students with opportunities, in which thinking differently is appreciated, would be absolutely rewarding and it is the skill that should be much more highlighted in the studies. Therefore, critical thinking is a skill through which students’ confidence can be raised, leading to their active engagement in the classroom and their being successful since they can see the issues from a different point of view and novel solutions to those problems can be proposed. In the current study, first of all, both teachers’ critical thinking ability and students’ classroom engagement have been discussed. Given that, the association between these two variables has been dealt with. Then, the implications and restrictions of the study as well as some recommendations for further studies have been proposed.

Teachers’ Critical Thinking Ability

Critical thinking has attracted much attention since teachers’ way of thinking and beliefs has a pivotal impact on what students achieve in terms of academic success and attainments. Dewey (1933 , p. 9), who can be regarded as the father of modern critical thinking, conceptualized it as “active, persistent, and careful of a belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds which support it and the further conclusions to which it tends.” As defined by Chance (1986) , critical thinking is conceptualized as the capability that one puts into practice to do the followings through this ability: facts which are analyzed, ideas that are generated and organized, opinions that are defended, comparisons that are made, inferences that are drawn, arguments which are evaluated, ideas that are organized, and problems that are solved. As stated by Vdovina and Gaibisso (2013) , critical thinking is relevant to quality thinking that enables learners to communicate with others, gain knowledge, and deal with ideas, attitudes, and beliefs in a more skillful way. Based on what has been proposed by Shirkhani and Fahim (2011) , critical thinking is an integral factor in many ways. The first reason that can be taken into consideration is that when language learners take responsibility for the way they think; they can evaluate the way they learn in a more successful way. Secondly, critical thinking causes learners to experience a meaningful process of learning in which learning a language is meaningful to them. Thirdly, critical thinking and learners’ achievement are positively correlated. If the learners are shown how to think critically, they get proficient in learning a language. Likewise, Liaw (2007) study indicated that when the content-based approach is implemented in the class, it promotes EFL students’ critical thinking skills. It should be noted that in a content-based approach, attention is focused on the content and what can be perceived through it.

Besides, as Davidson (1998) noted, “the English teachers are expected to provide learners with the ability to communicate with native speakers, valuing overt comments, clever criticism, and intellectual claims.” In a similar manner, Meyers (1986) proposed that teachers can facilitate critical thinking through the activities that are assigned, the tasks that are set, and the feedback that is provided. A study done in a Chinese context by Li and Liu (2021) put forward the taxonomy of critical thinking ability in the EFL learning context and in this study, five skills through which critical thinking can be practiced, were proposed: analyzing, inferring, evaluating, synthesizing, and self-reflection/self-correction ( Wang and Derakhshan, 2021 ). Li (2021) also indicated that the development of critical thinking in international students can be facilitated by learning Chinese. According to a study done by Birjandi and Bagherkazemi (2010) , a critical thinker has the following characteristics:

• problems are identified by them and relevant solutions are dealt with,

• valid and invalid inferences are recognized by them,

• decisions and judgments are suspended by them when there is not enough evidence to prove it

• the difference between logical reasoning and justifying is perceived by them

• relevant questions are asked by them to see if their students have understood

• statements and arguments are evaluated

• lack of understanding can be accepted by them

• they have developed a sense of curiosity

• clear criteria for analyzing ideas are defined

• he is a good listener and gives others feedback

• he believes that critical thinking is a never-ending process that needs to be evaluated

• judgment is suspended by them until all facts have been collected

• they seek evidence for the assumptions to be advocated

• opinions are adjusted by them when there are some new facts

• incorrect information is easily rejected by them.

Consequently, according to the characteristics mentioned above, teachers with the ability to think critically is good problem solvers and when facing a problem during the class, they can have greater reasoning skills so as to find a solution to the problem. They are curious and they also ask their students questions to create a sense of curiosity in them. Additionally, they do not accept the new ideas easily, instead, they analyze them and sometimes make them better.

Classroom Engagement

Engagement is an inseparable part of the learning process and a multifold phenomenon. Classroom engagement refers to the amount of participation that students take in the class to be actively involved in the activities and whether the mental and physical activities have a goal. Engagement itself is a context-oriented phrase which relies on cultures, families, school activities, and peers ( Finn and Zimmer, 2012 ). It has been categorized into different groups: Behavioral engagement such as the amount to which students participate actively in the class; emotional engagement pertains to high levels of enthusiasm which is linked to high levels of boredom and anxiety; cognitive engagement such as the usage of learning strategy and self-regulation; agentic engagement such as the amount of conscious effort so that the learning experience would be enriched ( Wang and Guan, 2020 ; Hiver et al., 2021 ). Amongst the aforementioned categories, the one which is strongly important in the learning process is behavioral engagement in that it is relevant to the actual recognition of an individual’s learning talents ( Dörnyei, 2019 ). Another possibility that can be viewed is to consider engagement from two other aspects, internal and external. The former implies how much time and effort is allocated to the process of the learning. The latter entails the measures that are taken at the institutional level so that the resources would be dealt with along with other options of learning and services for support, encouraging the involvement in activities leading to the possible outcomes such as consistency and satisfaction ( Harper and Quaye, 2009 ).

Much attention is deserved to be paid to engagement since it is perceived as a behavioral means with which students’ motivation can be realized and as a result, development through the learning process can occur ( Jang et al., 2010 ). Active involvement should be strengthened in L2 classes to prevent disruptive behaviors and diminish the valence of emotions that are negative such as feeling anxious, frustrated, and bored.

Regarding “classroom engagement,” its opposie word “disengagement” can play a significant role in not engaging the students in the class, leading to them feeling bored and demotivated in the class, so from this aspect, it would be worth considering this phrase as well. It has been claimed by some authors ( Skinner, 2016 ) that disengagement itself does not happen frequently in educational settings due largely to the fact that it is related to extreme behaviors, and it is when another phrase disaffection can be considered significant. Disaffection is characterized by disinterest, aversion, resignation, and reduced effort. Therefore, our perception of boredom as a complex emotion can be enhanced, and it can be dealt with more systematically if boredom is viewed through the following factors, disengagement, and disaffection ( Wang and Guan, 2020 ; Derakhshan et al., 2021 ). As Elder and Paul (2004) mentioned, students should be taught to actively make questions- that is a good emblem of engagement- which is a radical part of critical thinking. The more the students can question, the more they can learn. Some students get accustomed to memorizing the facts and have never been faced with the outcomes of the poor decisions they made since there is always someone to back them and they had better be challenged, being questioned by their teachers ( Rezaei et al., 2011 ).

The Relationship Between Teachers’ Critical Thinking Ability and Classroom Engagement

Critical thinking has been said to widen one’s horizon because it may shape students’ mindsets and help them take a look at items from a different viewpoint. When one has learned to think critically, they will never accept the status quo easily, he will welcome the opposing ideas and will evaluate the arguments. In the EFL context, when a learner has the capability to think critically, or he has been taught to think critically, he always looks for reasons learning new materials and in this respect, his curiosity allows him to learn everything in depth and challenge his schemata to make a link between the newly learned ideas and the ones he has already known. Critical thinking is not a term that can be utilized just for the specific type of people; it can be taught and practiced to be enhanced. The way ideas can be generated and the way comparisons can be made is highly relevant to what has been called critical thinking. Different items can be conceptualized in different ways when we look at them through the lens of critical thinking; therefore, it can have a positive effect on students’ mindsets and the way they live. From an educational point of view, the decisions that have been made by the students, the solutions that have been put forward to tackle a problem when it comes to a learning context, and the way through which their process of learning is ameliorated are all impacted by teachers’ critical thinking. When teachers think critically and they strive to see different skills from a different point of view, it is where students’ sense of curiosity is tickled and their imagination is stretched so as to think of things in a various way.

Implications and Further Suggestions for Research

Critical thinking is believed to have an enormous effect on students’ classroom engagement. As mentioned above, according to Dewey (1933) , the more the students practice thinking critically, the more successful they are in terms of academic achievements because they can decide more rationally, and their problems can be addressed more sensibly. Attention should be paid that this study is of great significance for those people who are engaged in the learning process including those devising curriculums, develop materials, teachers, and learners. Critical thinking is a skill that should be developed in learners so that they would compare and contrast ideas, and as a result, decide wisely and accomplish what they have planned for. Accordingly, opportunities must be provided by the educators to provide a learning environment in which autonomous learning, active engagement, reflection on learners’ learning process, and L2 advancement are emphasized, for example, task-based activities ( Han and Wang, 2021 ).

Additionally, further studies can be done to find more about the variables in this study.

With regard to various age groups, the understanding of critical thinking might be different. Teenagers are said to start thinking critically and hypothetically; however, undoubtedly there is a big difference between what can be perceived about critical thinking by teenagers and adolescents in the educational contexts. Consequently, how different levels of critical thinking can be conceptualized in the learning context is one of the studies that can be conducted in the future. Secondly, teachers’ success and well-being are also tremendously affected by the way they think. Therefore, from this point of view, a study can be conducted in the future so as to find the correlation between teachers’ critical thinking and other aspects of their lives. The reason why this study should be carried out is that considering the L2 environment, students’ way of thinking is impacted by how they are treated by their teachers. Teachers are supposed to equip students with techniques through which the learning process will be facilitated and students’ creativity will be boosted, therefore, it is what helps them to be critical thinkers both in the classroom context and out of it. Another line of research that is worth being done is that diverse activities that can enhance learners’ ability of critical thinking should be categorized based on learners’ characters. In a modern educational world where individual differences are emphasized, classroom activities should be classified, regarding the learning differences of the learners. Therefore, according to Birjandi and Bagherkazemi (2010) ; Vdovina and Gaibisso (2013) , and Li and Liu (2021) , teachers’ critical thinking ability play a vital role in how students are engaged in the class.

Author Contributions

The author confirms being the sole contributor of this work and has approved it for publication.

This review was supported by the Social Science Foundation of Hebei Province of China “Testing and Research on Critical Thinking Ability of Undergraduates in Hebei Province under the Background of ‘Belt and Road’ Education Action” (Project Number: HB20YY017).

Conflict of Interest

The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher’s Note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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Keywords : critical thinking, classroom engagement, foreign language learning, EFL classroom, EFT teacher

Citation: Yan Z (2021) English as a Foreign Language Teachers’ Critical Thinking Ability and L2 Students’ Classroom Engagement. Front. Psychol. 12:773138. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.773138

Received: 09 September 2021; Accepted: 19 October 2021; Published: 12 November 2021.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2021 Yan. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Ziguang Yan, [email protected]

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

• DOI: 10.1016/J.SBSPRO.2011.11.214
• Corpus ID: 144906400

Enhancing critical thinking in foreign language learners

• Servat Shirkhani , M. Fahim
• Published 2011
• Education, Linguistics
• Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences

113 Citations

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5 Ways to Boost Critical Thinking in World Language Classes

One way to raise students’ engagement is to ask them to do more work—meaningful work with authentic materials from the target culture.

As teachers, we’ve all experienced lessons that fell flat. The students were uninspired or disengaged, and wore blank, expressionless faces. While these moments can feel disappointing and discouraging, they help us learn and improve by honing our instructional choices.

These experiences have provoked me to think differently about my lessons—what could I do differently? Where was I going wrong? I realized that part of the reason my students seemed uninspired in these moments was likely because I was not asking them to do much. They were not thinking critically, making cultural comparisons, or problem-solving. This realization led me to boost the levels of rigor and critical thinking in my world language classes.

5 Ways to Increase Students’ Critical Thinking

1. Evaluate the questions you’re asking: Are your questions crafted to produce detailed, in-depth responses, or do they lead to one-word answers? Do they allow students to draw on their personal experiences or offer their opinions? Do they inspire students to passionately debate, or to engage in an exchange with a peer? Are students answering these questions enthusiastically? Let’s look at an example of a flat question versus a dynamic one.

“Why is global warming a serious issue?” is an important question, but it doesn’t require students to offer details about their thoughts or opinions on the matter, and it is unlikely to result in an enthusiastic response. Changing it to, “How could the effects of global warming impact or change your future life, and how does this make you feel?” directly solicits students’ perspectives. This question gets students thinking about their own lives, which can heighten their engagement.

2. Place culture at the core of your lessons and units: Language teachers are not solely responsible for teaching a language—we should also be exposing our students to the culture(s) associated with the target language. Our students often make deeper connections with cultural aspects of the language rather than with the linguistic ones. Embrace this!

If a Spanish teacher, for example, is teaching a unit about foods, they can focus on the Mediterranean diet in Spain and make a connection to healthy lifestyle practices. If they’re teaching a unit about the environment, they might focus on why Costa Rica is a leader in sustainability and ecotourism. Weaving cultural points into essential questions adds another layer of rigor to our units of study.

Try requiring that students make cultural comparisons between their native culture(s) and the target one. This gives them the opportunity to think critically about their own cultures and allows them to recognize that not every culture is the same, guiding them to be more culturally competent global citizens.

3. Plan lessons and design activities with Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy: Some powerful verbs featured in Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy —such as recall , interpret , infer , execute , differentiate , critique , and produce —draw attention to the skills we want to develop in our students.

For example, we want our students to interpret authentic resources such as infographics or podcasts. We want them to infer the meaning behind the titles of news articles or short stories. We want them to differentiate between cultural practices in the target language country and the United States. We want them to critique statements or texts that we present to them, and we want them to produce well-executed pieces of writing or oral presentations.

Let these verbs guide your methods and lesson planning. Engaging in the acts of recalling, interpreting, inferring, executing, differentiating, critiquing and producing will aid your students in accomplishing more rigorous tasks.

4. Incorporate authentic resources: There’s no better way to expose students to culture and higher-order thinking than with authentic resources—real-life materials from the target country, including infographics, articles, songs, films, podcasts, commercials, written ads, and so on.

Authentic resources need not be reserved for higher-level classes—they can be used at any level. Adapt the task—not the resource—for the appropriate level. Level one students often need an authentic resource to pique their interest in the language and culture. For example, when teaching novice students about foods and eating habits in the target country, incorporate an authentic menu for them to examine and analyze. Create a basic task like a graphic organizer for them to complete with the menu. They don’t need to understand every word in order to complete the task. Intermediate level students can likely interpret an authentic resource with little to no assistance.

Using authentic resources can entice students to continue on their language learning journey, igniting their curiosity. Such resources also present an increased level of rigor and challenge. Students are required to evaluate and analyze an authentic cultural product when evaluating these resources.

5. Give students independence: While it’s sometimes tempting to lecture students and control the entirety of the class period, releasing some control can be empowering. Let students think independently and design some of their own tasks. Require them to problem-solve. Give them choices. Let them own their learning and take an active role in it. Giving students time to work independently fosters a rigorous environment in which students are able to think critically without constant assistance.

Rather than providing questions immediately after reading an article with your students, allow them to come up with the questions. Identify key vocabulary by asking students which words they associate with the given topic instead of providing a list. And instead of leading every class discussion, assign students different jobs in group discussions, or allow them to take turns facilitating a whole-class discussion. When students are given a chance to lead, they generally rise to the occasion, which can lead to deeper learning.

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Article Contents

Introduction, language teaching: more than teaching language, introducing the books, critical thinking, taboos and controversial issues in foreign language education, gender diversity and sexuality in english language education, antisocial language teaching: english and the pervasive pathology of whiteness, social justice and the language classroom, final thoughts, the reviewer, beyond elt: more than just teaching language.

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Steve Brown, Beyond ELT: more than just teaching language, ELT Journal , 2024;, ccae038, https://doi.org/10.1093/elt/ccae038

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Most people would agree that the world is currently facing significant problems: we have not yet recovered from a global pandemic, wars are killing thousands every day, climate change is starting to damage people’s livelihoods and well-being, wealth inequality is increasing, minority groups are being oppressed for a variety of reasons, the spread of disinformation and fake news makes it increasingly difficult to know what is true and what is not—the list goes on. While these issues are causing real concern for people’s current welfare and for the future of the planet, and are the focus of everyday discussion all around the world, whether they have a place in the ELT classroom seems to be a different matter. There have long been calls—including from academics within the native English-speaking ‘inner circle’—for issues such as these to be incorporated into ELT curriculum content (see, for example, Pennycook 1989 ), but these calls have tended to be stifled by an ostensible desire for the ELT profession to remain ‘politically neutral’. In recent years, however, the extent of the problems facing the world, and the sense of urgency that something needs to be done to reverse the current trajectory, have allowed discourses advocating more transformative pedagogies to move closer to the mainstream. To this end, a number of books have been published recently that explore some of the bigger issues of concern in the world today, and how they can (and, more to the point, should ) be addressed in ELT. This survey review examines five such books, offering individual reviews of each one and considering the contribution they make towards a significant shift in ELT—one that moves away from the preservation of the status quo, and becomes focused on the promotion of a critically aware, transformative, social-justice-oriented agenda.

As Pennycook (2021) suggests, since its emergence as an academic discipline, the dominant view in applied linguistics in the United Kingdom and the United States—which has tended to play a significant role in informing English language teaching practice—was that it was, or should be, a ‘value-free’ discipline. As such, it drew on theories in SLA to develop language teaching approaches and methodologies from a position of what was claimed to be ‘political neutrality’. This desire for an ‘unbiased’ approach manifests itself in the content of many widely recognized ELT teacher training courses, which historically have focused on methodology and classroom processes, but which devote less attention to discussion of, or reflection on, the impact that English language teaching can have on wider society. This ostensibly neutral position is also adopted by some of the bigger global publishing companies that produce ELT materials, which tend to focus on rather bland topics that are likely to be acceptable for discussion in any context or culture, such as sport, travel, and shopping. Rather than selecting topics that learners can critically engage with, the main focus has tended to be on developing understanding of systems of language, providing and practising lexical items that are deemed most likely to be of some use to people’s everyday, academic or professional lives, and developing skills that allow learners to use this language and lexis within some kind of meaningful context.

However, an alternative school of thought within applied linguistics and ELT is that a position of political neutrality is in fact impossible, let alone preferable. For Pennycook, wherever in the world it is being taught, ‘English is bound up in a wealth of local social, cultural, economic and political complexities’ (Pennycook 2017: 7), making the inclusion of such complexities within the curriculum unavoidable. The question, then, is not whether social and political issues should be incorporated into ELT, but which ones. Besides, the practice of communicating across cultures, which is, after all, the main purpose of learning an additional language, brings with it ‘the opportunity for emancipation from the confines of learners’ native habitat and culture, with the development of new perceptions and insights into foreign and native cultures alike’ ( Byram 1988 : 15). This implies that any kind of language learning should entail some critical engagement with cultural norms and values, with a view to developing the learner’s understanding of their position within society.

The above argument suggests, then, that there is more to language teaching than teaching language. Language cannot be taught in a vacuum; there needs to be content, and decisions need to be made about what that content should be. These decisions determine what learners are (and are not) able to talk about most proficiently in the language they are learning. What is more, if the same content is being used across the world through the use of globally published textbooks, or if ELT is required to comply with global outcomes and standards, the likelihood is that the world’s English-learning population will become highly proficient in using English in some contexts, and hugely deficient in using it in others. Littlejohn claimed that ‘one of the most worrying aspects of standardisation and centralisation is that by setting out what needs to be done, what should not be done is simultaneously dictated’ ( Littlejohn 2012 : 294). Given the narrow range of topics and issues that tend to be covered in most ELT curricula, it is fair to assume that the ELT profession is very effectively preparing people to talk about their favourite room or their last shopping trip, to write a short description of information presented in a chart, or successfully chair a business meeting. However, when it comes to critically engaging with issues that are having a damaging impact on people or the world, or exploring ways to transform society in ways that will address the problems we currently face, it seems that our profession is less effective. This is not to say that ELT textbooks fail completely to include some mention of social justice issues, or to allow scope for teachers to incorporate such discussions into their teaching if they wish to. However, such affordances are a far cry from making these big issues central to the learning process, and pushing them to the periphery of the curriculum—or erasing them altogether (how many trans people are represented in published ELT materials, for example?)—is, in itself, a political act. As Freire famously put it in his seminal book Pedagogy of the Oppressed : ‘washing one’s hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral’ ( Freire 1996 : 122).

Over the years, concepts such as linguistic imperialism, native-speakerism, and, more recently, translanguaging have exposed some of the more problematic underpinnings of applied linguistics and led to the emergence of critical applied linguistics ( Pennycook 2021 ) as a kind of parallel discipline. Yet much of the teaching practice that goes on in ELT still seems inclined to take a very cautious approach towards anything that might challenge learners’ existing beliefs and attitudes. This makes ELT something of an outlier in the field of education. While the ELT profession has, by and large, sought to avoid ‘controversial’ issues in the classroom, ostensibly so as not to upset learners’ sensibilities, the world of teacher education beyond TESOL has a more sophisticated understanding of the non-neutral nature of education, and it is widely accepted that the adoption of some kind of ideological position is unavoidable. Schiro (2013) identifies four different ideological positions that can be taken in teacher education: a scholar academic position, which promotes the transmission of cultural knowledge via the institution’s academic disciplines; a learner-centred position, which supports learners developing according to their needs and interests; a social reconstruction position, which is concerned with developing an understanding of social issues, with a view to transforming society; and a social efficiency position, which focuses on creating competent individuals who can meet the social and economic needs of the society in which they live. It is accepted, though, that subjective partiality is a requirement in any educational approach. Any attempts to ‘remove’ ideology or ‘political interference’ from education and focus instead on evidence-based ‘facts’ (see, for example, Morris 2014 ) are merely attempts to impose one ideological position over others.

It is curious, then, that the myth of neutrality should be so prevalent in ELT. After all, it is well documented that education has been complicit in the Eurocentric colonization of thought, and the resulting epistemicide, or eradication of alternative thought systems, that has taken place in the Global South as a result of this colonization ( de Sousa Santos 2014 ). One might expect an area of education with such a global reach as ELT to take more interest in its own—potentially very damaging—ideological position in global society. In a context in which the impact of corporate globalization on societies and the climate is facing widespread criticism, such critical examination might lead to a more social-transformation-oriented approach in ELT, rather than an approach that has tended to facilitate, rather than challenge, the spread of neoliberal ideology ( Block et al . 2012 ).

With this in mind, it does seem that things are changing. As the precarious nature of humanity highlighted above in the introduction requires the legitimacy of the status quo to come under increasing scrutiny, many ELT professionals and academics have started to reject the fallacy of a politically neutral pedagogy. As dominant ideologies are exposed as having a damaging impact on the ELT profession and wider global society, there are increasing calls for the adoption of a position that seeks to effect positive social change, in line with Schiro’s (2013) social reconstruction position. It is in this climate, then, that this survey review is presented, covering five recently published books, all of which challenge the premise that language teaching is ‘simply’ a question of ‘teaching language’. Instead, these books all hold the view that ignoring key issues in global society is, to a large extent, a dereliction of duty. Like all educators, language teachers, materials developers, and curriculum planners have a responsibility to include within their content the development of capacities to gain a critical understanding of the world, with a view to transforming it for the better.

The first book in this review is Critical Thinking , by Gregory Hadley and Andrew Boon. Unlike the other books, this one focuses on a specific learning skill which, the authors argue, should be incorporated into ELT in all its forms. I then move on to provide reviews of two edited books: Taboos and Controversial Issues in Foreign Language Education , edited by Christian Ludwig and Theresa Summer, and Gender Diversity and Sexuality in English Language Education: New Transnational Voices , edited by Darío Luis Banegas and Navan Govender. Each of these books explores various ways in which ELT can incorporate issues that have hitherto been marginalized in most ELT contexts. This is followed by a review of Antisocial Language Teachi ng: English and the Pervasive Pathology of Whiteness by J. P. B. Gerald, a single-author monograph which uses the construct of whiteness as a lens through which to analyse the ELT profession. Finally, I review Deniz Ortaçtepe Hart’s Social Justice and the Language Classroom: Reflection, Action and Transformation , which explores language teaching from a social justice perspective. I conclude by drawing together some of the common themes in the five books and reflecting on the contribution that they make to the ELT profession.

Before I begin this review, it is perhaps important to make a clear distinction between critical thinking and critical theory. Critical theory is an ontological position that views reality as socially constructed by hegemonic forces designed to locate power in ways that privilege some groups over others. Critical thinking (CT), on the other hand, is a discipline that is concerned with analysing data, claims, arguments, etc., with a view to identifying their underlying premises and assumptions, and, therefore, the extent to which they can be believed. Although CT is often applied by critical theorists, CT does not necessarily support critical theory, and can even be applied to critique it. Although critical theory heavily informs the epistemological assumptions underpinning the other books in this review, Hadley and Boon’s Critical Thinking is less concerned with adopting a specific epistemological or ideological position in ELT. Rather, the focus is on giving students the skills to understand the logic—or lack of logic—underpinning the texts and other sources of language content that they are exposed to. This book is part of a series entitled ‘Research and Resources in Language Teaching’, which seeks to bridge the often-criticized gap between research and language teaching practice. Although the series and book titles do not specify this, it is very much a book for teachers of English, with references made to English language, ELT, and EAP at various points throughout. Compared to the other books in this review, it has a very practical focus. Its main aim is to provide ideas for encouraging critical thinking among learners within a language teaching context, following what it calls on the back cover a ‘dynamic framework’.

As with all the books in this series, this volume is organized in four parts. Part I, ‘From Research to Implications’, starts with an introduction that offers a definition of critical thinking followed by a section that answers some common questions about CT, allowing the authors to address common sceptical views that readers may have about the importance of including CT within the language curriculum. Three key issues in CT are then addressed: argumentation, logical fallacies, and the role of problem-solving in externalizing or actualizing CT. These sections provide an overview of the research underpinning the principles of CT, with diagrams and tables supporting examples of different types of argumentation and analysis. Part II, entitled ‘From Implications to Application’, then takes some of the concepts and frameworks for CT introduced in Part I, and provides no fewer than 93 practical activities that aim to introduce these various concepts to learners.

Part III, ‘From Application to Implementation’, is concerned with methodology, and how the activities introduced in the previous part can be integrated into the curriculum. Two possible approaches are presented: first, how to create a self-standing CT course for English language learners; and second, how to supplement an existing course with CT activities. It also offers suggestions for adapting the activities to suit specific contexts and incorporate critical thinking more broadly into the teaching and learning process. A final section in this part offers some ideas for teachers to develop their own CT materials. Part IV, entitled ‘From Implementation to Research’, presents research and practice as part of a cycle and encourages teachers to use their own teaching to contribute to literature on the role and use of CT in ELT. This part offers a robust, mixed-methods research approach that teachers can apply to their own contexts, and offers some ideas for how to share their research findings. This part highlights the non-measurable nature of CT, and how an oversimplified, quantitative approach to research can only provide a partial, incomplete understanding of the phenomenon. It is a useful reminder that research into critical thinking is far from straightforward.

Although this book differs from the others in terms of its content and practical application, it still fits within the remit of this review as it is grounded in the principle that English language teachers have a responsibility to teach beyond language—to develop skills in critical literacy and analysis so that students can deal more effectively with the vast body of information that is thrust at them on a daily basis. ‘Our world’, the authors tell us in the introduction, ‘is experiencing a crisis of the mind’ (p. 4). They go on to say that ‘whether online, on the street, at home, or in the marketplace, we encounter arguments and propositions intended to prey upon those with an undeveloped sense of critical thinking’ (p. 5). As you might expect, this claim is then backed up with a solid, evidence-based argument which illustrates not only the prevalence of false or misleading information that is out there; it also reveals how CT features a lot less in education than it used to. In short, CT is needed more than ever, but it is being taught less.

The book introduces and uses a large amount of terminology about argumentation and different ways of analysing the truthfulness of certain statements. This is simultaneously very useful and somewhat bewildering to those readers who are not familiar with it (I include myself as one of those readers). Terms such as logical fallacy, false dilemma, and circular reasoning are used throughout the book, and may take some getting used to. However, these terms are clearly explained, and examples demonstrate that they relate to common features of everyday discourse—features that most readers will already be familiar with. The use of this terminology to describe strategies for argumentation and analysis highlights that CT is very much an established discipline in and of itself. It is clearly very useful, and in some ways reassuring, to know that teachers can draw on and apply these concepts in their teaching. The theory and research-focused parts of the book are supported with useful diagrams and figures that clearly illustrate the concepts being introduced and explored.

However, this book goes well beyond providing a theoretical overview of CT. The sheer number and range of ready-made practical activities make it very useful for any teacher who wishes to incorporate critical thinking into their practice. A possible problem with this is that it makes the book very lopsided in its structure, which is likely to affect how it is used by readers. Parts I, III, and IV make up a combined total of just 68 pages; in fact, Part III, which is concerned with how to implement CT into the ELT curriculum, is only eight pages long. By contrast Part II, which contains all the practical activities, is 226 pages long. This means that there may be a tendency for teachers to treat the book as if it was just a collection of activities: they might skim through Part I, select practical activities from Part II as stand-alone materials to supplement their own teaching, and never get to Parts III and IV. But the fact is that the book is much more than a collection of supplementary activities, and Parts I, III and IV are arguably the most valuable as they allow teachers to get a deep understanding of the importance of CT and its application to ELT. These parts also encourage teachers to develop their own skills in contributing to a more CT-oriented approach to ELT, by offering a research framework and practical tips on sharing ideas and findings. It would be a shame if these features of the book were to be overlooked. Perhaps the more theoretical and research-oriented ideas could have been woven throughout the practical section. This might have helped readers to develop an understanding of the theoretical underpinnings within each activity, and could also have illustrated how teachers themselves can contribute to the cycle from research to practice and back to research again.

Having said that, it would be unfair to criticize the book for being too practical—its practical application is a key strength in many respects, and it also distinguishes this book from the others in this review. Whether they read it all or dip into certain parts, this book offers scope for teachers to develop their capacities to understand and apply CT themselves, to introduce ready-made activities into the classroom to develop the CT of their students, to incorporate CT more coherently into their curriculum, and to conduct research related to CT in their own practice. The argument that the authors provide in Part I for incorporating critical thinking into ELT is a compelling one, and it justifies the book’s contribution to the field.

As previously mentioned, a long-standing criticism of ELT has been its tendency to avoid topics and issues that could be regarded as controversial or offensive. This tendency is compounded by a global approach to methodology and materials design; many large publishing corporations produce textbooks and other materials that aim to appeal to as wide a market as possible, in as many areas of the world as possible. The result of this is a tendency for ELT materials not only to follow a similar format and teaching approach, but also to stick to a very narrow range of topics. Materials published for a global market tend to avoid any mention of what are commonly referred to as the PARSNIP topics: politics, alcohol, religion, sex, narcotics, isms, and pork ( Gray 2002 ). An obvious problem with this universal, one-size-fits-all approach is that topics and issues which are not taboo in many parts of the world (and in some cases central to everyday life) are often omitted because they could cause offence in other countries or regions. For example, while the mention of pork may offend the sensibilities of many learners in the Middle East, it is a key element of people’s diets in a large number of other countries. In China the pig is even regarded as a symbol of prosperity and good fortune. Another example, from my own experience teaching ESOL learners in the United Kingdom, is the topic of narcotics. There is widespread, often public use of drugs in many areas of the United Kingdom, including areas where my learners were living, and a lot of these learners were unaware of the legalities and implications of drug use, addiction, and dependency. The social impact of drugs therefore became an important topic in our syllabus, as it gave the learners necessary knowledge to understand what was happening in their own neighbourhoods, to make informed decisions themselves, and to advise and give appropriate guidance to their children.

Another key problem with this controversy-averse approach to materials design is that the avoidance of issues such as politics, religion, racism, or gender discrimination guarantees that any discussion of these social issues, which could motivate engaged discussion, lead to effective language development, and provide opportunities to develop critical thinking skills, is effectively removed from the curriculum. This erasure is even more problematic when examined through the lens of critical pedagogy, which seeks to create ‘an informed, critical citizenry capable of participating and governing in a democratic society’ ( Giroux 2011 : 7). In order to become informed in this way, it is necessary for classroom discussions to incorporate these issues, challenge existing beliefs, and explore alternatives. This requires a focus on developing critical literacies: connecting with the learners’ own experiences, applying critical consciousness within the context of those experiences, and responding with follow-up action.

The relevance of critical literacies to language teaching is, or should be, self-evident, as it creates scope to teach useful language at the same time as focusing on content that is necessarily relevant to learners’ lives, and the area of critical language pedagogy has emerged as a field in its own right ( Crookes 2021 ). This book applies the principles of critical language pedagogy to explore how taboos and controversial issues can—and should—be incorporated into language education.

The book starts with an introductory chapter from the editors, followed by twenty chapters from contributing authors, which are divided into three parts. The introduction provides an overview of critical language pedagogy, a key tenet being ‘that beliefs and practices in society, which are related to power and the domination of certain groups over others, should be questioned and challenged’ (p. 5). It then discusses the PARSNIP policy in ELT materials design, before proposing the concept of ‘taboo literacy’ (p. 11), offering a pedagogic framework that can guide teachers towards effective incorporation of taboo topics into their teaching.

Part I (Chapters 2–6) is entitled ‘Theoretical Considerations and Insights’. It starts with a chapter by John Gray on the political economy of taboos, which explores how the ‘erasure’ or proscription of some topics, particularly sexual orientation, race, and class, allows the unfettered promotion of a more easily marketable, neoliberal world-view. This is followed by a chapter by Daniel Becker which presents a case for making taboos visible in the English language classroom. David Gerlach and Mareen Lüke present ideas for bringing critical approaches into language teacher education, and Grit Alter and Stefanie Fuchs provide a chapter discussing what constitutes a taboo topic in the first place, and analysing some ethical and practical issues that emerge in regard to their use in the foreign language classroom. The final chapter, by Aline Williams, focuses on the importance of resilience as a prerequisite for the application of critical language pedagogy.

Part II, ‘Empirical Enquiries’, consists of three chapters that present research related to taboo topics in language education. A chapter by Theresa Summer and Jeanine Steinbock presents findings from a study of adolescent learners’ perceptions of taboo topics in the English language classroom in Germany. In this study, participants broadly agreed that it is necessary for educators not only to include such topics in the curriculum, but also to pay attention to what the learners themselves have to say about them. Then Theresa Summer and Christian Ludwig, the book’s editors, provide a chapter on a survey of pre-service teachers’ attitudes to taboos in language teacher education which reveals that, while student teachers support the inclusion of taboo topics in the ELT curriculum, they also identify numerous challenges in doing this. These findings imply a need for a more systematic approach in teacher education that addresses the challenge of incorporating taboo and social justice issues in ELT. With this in mind, the following chapter by Christine Gardemann presents a study related to developing a pedagogic alliance in the ELT classroom between teachers and learners—‘a reciprocal relationship of mutual trust’ (p. 93).

Part III, entitled ‘Specific Taboos and Practical Examples’, is the longest section of the book, with twelve chapters exploring different taboo topics and their application in the language classroom. The range of topics discussed in these chapters is broad, and includes some that may not immediately spring to mind as taboo. Chapters on the issues of disability (by Katrin Thomson), mental health (Christian Ludwig and Veronika Martinez), swearing and taboo language (Valentin Werner), racism (Silke Braselmann), and human trafficking (Christian Ludwig) provide useful insight into how these issues can be incorporated into the language classroom. Other chapters are concerned with topics that are, in a sense, so taboo that they are unlikely to even be named as taboo topics, such as Maria Eisenmann’s interesting discussion of critical animal pedagogy and the incorporation of animal rights as a taboo topic in foreign language education, and Roman Bartosch’s chapter on death and extinction. Other chapters focus on taboo topics more generally and their application in different contexts or using certain media, such as Anchala Amarasinghe and Susanne Borgwaldt’s chapter using feature films to develop taboo literacy in the Sri Lankan context, a chapter from Sandra Stadler-Heer on taboo topics for South African students of European literature, and Janina Reinhardt’s chapter on using television series to legitimize discussion of taboo topics. Part III ends with a chapter from Eva Seidl that is concerned with translator and interpreter training and the role of taboo topics in developing agency.

A final chapter by Tyson Seburn, entitled ‘International Perspectives on Taboos in Foreign Language Education’, provides a conclusion to the book, drawing key themes together and discussing the relevance of critical pedagogy in foreign language teaching. This chapter ends with a call for both global and local teacher education programmes to incorporate these practices in order for ‘those in our profession, including our learners, to tackle injustice and build connections through communicative critical pedagogy’ (p. 259).

A key strength of this book is its logical layout and the way the chapters are grouped and sequenced. The theoretical overview of critical language pedagogy that the editors provide in the introduction, followed by the presentation of a framework for developing taboo literacy, is a helpful starting point that makes the book accessible to teachers who may be interested in incorporating a wider range of topics and issues in their teaching, but are unfamiliar with the background to the teaching of critical literacies. An awareness of the theoretical underpinnings is developed further throughout Part I, meaning that readers arrive at the research chapters with a clear understanding of the background informing the studies. The chapters that make up Part III could be dipped into individually by readers who are interested in specific taboos or learning contexts, but reading them all highlights the broad range of topics that currently tend to be omitted from the language curriculum, as well as providing useful insights into how it is not only possible, but highly beneficial, to bring discussion of these issues into our teaching. The diverse issues and contexts covered in Part III are supported by practical examples that are clearly and explicitly grounded in the principles of critical language pedagogy, demonstrating its universal relevance and applicability.

The closing chapter enhances the cohesion of the book further, stressing the need for critical pedagogy to be incorporated into teacher education. This message is prevalent throughout the book and is an important one. For the contributors to this book, the effective use of taboos and controversial issues is not simply a question of replacing the usual bland topics with racier ones. It involves adopting different pedagogies, and applying a new mindset from that which tends to be prescribed in most language teaching contexts. Keep things light, don’t cause offence, keep the students happy—mantras like these are drummed into language teachers from their initial training onwards, leading to the belief that any methodology designed to explore social problems, challenge existing beliefs, or encourage community action seems like a dangerous act of subversion. As this book convincingly argues, however, critical language pedagogy not only develops learners’ critical understanding of social issues, but also enriches and develops capacities for language development in areas that are highly relevant to their needs and, sadly, neglected in many language learning contexts.

Issues related to gender and sexuality in ELT have been a source of debate for quite some time. ELT textbooks in particular have been criticized for presenting only stereotypical gender roles and failing to represent people whose lifestyles and relationships do not conform to hetero- and cis-normative values. The narrow representation of gender and relationships in ELT materials has been highlighted as extremely unhelpful—to say the least—in most contexts, for a number of reasons. For John Gray, LGBTQ+ invisibility ‘means that lesbian and gay [and other] students are either silenced or forced into challenging the ways in which they are positioned’ ( Gray 2015 : 187). The failure to confront and criticize sexist attitudes and patriarchal structures has a similar impact with regard to gender identity, reinforcing beliefs and behaviours that perpetuate gender inequality while at the same time delegitimizing any challenge to the heteronormative, patriarchal status quo. Also, for migrant learners of English who have moved from socially repressive countries to new environments where LGBTQ+ and women’s rights are enshrined in law, the need to incorporate discussion of these issues and their social acceptability in the classroom is self-evident, and their failure to do this makes many popular ELT textbooks inappropriate for this context ( Brown and Nanguy 2021 ).

The lack of inclusion of a wider range of sexualities and gender roles in most popular ELT materials also affects teaching methodology, legitimizing the unhelpful narrative that discussing lifestyles which challenge some students’ beliefs, or have the potential to cause offence, is a bad idea and must be avoided at all costs. These materials encourage teachers to play safe through the use of innocuous topics, pandering to normative values that may be dominant but are also damaging. A new book that explores the issues of gender diversity and sexuality in ELT, which aims to develop queer critical literacies in teachers, and which offers ideas for their incorporation into the English language classroom, is therefore very welcome.

Although the contents page presents an introduction followed by twelve separate chapters, the editors tell us in their introduction that the book chapters are organized into three parts: ‘Teaching for Gender and Sexuality Diversity’, ‘Navigating Gender and Sexuality Diversity’, and ‘Interrogating Resources for Gender and Sexuality Diversity’. The first part includes chapters that cover initial teacher education in South Africa and Scotland (by Grant Andrews and Navan Govender), post-secondary education (Antonella Romiti and Jessie Smith), ELT in primary education (David Valente), and the teaching of younger learners in the private sector (Germán Canale). The chapters on navigating gender and sexual diversity present studies as wide-ranging as Gulsah Kutuk’s exploration of the effects of stereotyping on male Turkish learners, Lian Cao’s study of online dating as a source of informal language learning in Canada, and Shin-ying Huang’s analysis of Taiwanese university students’ reflections on, and reactions to, representations of gender and sexuality that seek to shape their identities. The final part, which is concerned with materials and resources, contains two chapters on gender and sexuality in ELT textbooks. The first, by Suha Alansari, focuses on gender representation in global textbooks and their localized versions, and finds that both versions are primarily concerned with promoting ‘the neoliberal conception of the global citizen’ (p. 156). Chris Richards then presents findings from a study that included a quantitative multimodal analysis of gender and sexuality representations in course materials, followed by the qualitative analysis of data collected from interviews with teachers. This study corroborates findings from previous research in identifying stereotypical gender representations and exclusively heteronormative presentations of relationships and families, although it does identify a progression towards more positive representation of women and a desire among teachers to adapt or subvert the negative representations they encounter. This chapter is followed by a critical analysis of language teacher education in Germany by David Gerlach, and a study of gender diversity in an online ELT programme in Bangladesh by Sayeedur Rahman and Mohammad Hamidul Haque. Joanna Pawelczyk’s final chapter is entitled ‘New Transnational Voices on Gender Diversity in English Language Education: Moving Forward’. This chapter refers back to some of the studies presented in the previous chapters, stressing the promotion of dominant ideologies surrounding gender roles and sexuality in ELT materials, and the concurrent erasure of non-heteronormative values and lifestyles. This creates a ‘transnational struggle to recognize a diversity of gender and sexual identities in English language education systems’ (p. 212), reflecting the global nature of some studies, the role of intercultural communication, and the fact that English language education needs to be ‘a truly diverse and inclusive space for all students’ (p. 216).

A small but important criticism of the book relates to the contents page, which does not separate the chapters into the three parts identified by the editors in the introduction. Doing this would allow readers to easily identify the book’s structure, making it more accessible. Nevertheless, there is a lot to commend this book for, not least its diversity of content. The editors state very clearly in the introduction their intention to ensure the book offers perspectives that go beyond those that are normally found in WEIRD (Western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic) countries. This is certainly achieved, with writers from a wide range of backgrounds and the inclusion of studies conducted in countries as diverse as Taiwan, Bangladesh, and Argentina. The diverse contexts add to the richness of the content, allowing the book to convey the complexity and variety of the issues and concepts it seeks to address. The inclusion of diverse contexts also demonstrates how different issues have different degrees of relevance in specific locations; this all helps to make the book a very interesting read. However, it also presents a challenge for the book as a whole to maintain a consistent message. Highlighting the range of issues to consider in different teaching contexts is, of course, a useful message in itself, especially when a key underpinning point of queer critical literacy is that gender diversity and sexualities are far more complicated than the traditional binary identities (male/female, gay/straight, married/single, etc.) that the heteronormative patriarchy has socially conditioned us all to accept. But it does mean that the ideas being conveyed in some chapters could be seen as not particularly relevant to the book’s overall message. For example, Gulsah Kutuk’s study into the impact of gender stereotyping on the listening performance of male Turkish university students relates to the perception that women are better at learning languages than men, and is concerned with exploring whether this leads to negative self-perceptions and diminished performance among male learners of English. Although there may be evidence for this, concerns that male learners are victims of gender stereotyping seems—to this reader at least—to be rather low priority compared to the extent to which stereotyping affects women and people with queer and/or trans identities in society. Similarly, although Suha Alansari’s study of global, regional, and localized (Saudi) ELT textbooks throws up some interesting findings—in particular the prevalence of neoliberal values in all three—readers in societies that broadly accept the principles of gender equality may wonder if it might be more useful to explore the lack of representation of sexualities in these materials.

Of course, by forcing readers to ask themselves questions such as these, the book is achieving its aim of encouraging the development of critical literacies. From my own (WEIRD) perspective, some of the issues explored in the book may seem somewhat out of step with the liberal and inclusive values that are widely accepted in my context. In the United Kingdom, for example, debates about gender equality tend to centre around how to remove barriers to achieving it, rather than whether or not it is a good idea. By developing my understanding of important gender and sexuality issues in other parts of the world, the book has helped me to identify different locations of struggle. This in turn encourages me to be less intolerant of other perspectives. Readers with similar backgrounds to mine are likely to benefit from the book in similar ways, while others will appreciate having the issues that are relevant to their contexts incorporated into this important discussion. This can lead to Pawelczyk’s call for action in the final chapter to go beyond creating discourses about normalizing diversity, and instead to start ‘talking about doing normalizing diversity in English language education … [which] … needs teachers and educators who are equipped with critical skills … to include and respect the (intersectional) identities of all students’ (p. 216). These critical skills and inclusive approaches have not traditionally been the focus of TESOL education courses, and this call for action is a refreshing change.

While the first three books in this review offer some analysis of why certain issues or skills are absent or poorly dealt with in ELT, they are mostly concerned with filling a gap in the discourse by offering ideas and examples for incorporating new content that benefits learners in ways that go beyond the development of linguistic and communicative competence. I now turn to a book that is primarily focused on exploring how a socially constructed phenomenon has had (and continues to have) a damaging impact on ELT. By the far the most polemic of the five books being reviewed, J. P. B. Gerald’s Antisocial Language Teaching: English and the Pervasive Pathology of Whiteness explores the concept of whiteness and its role in shaping ELT as a field that supports discourses of white supremacy, while at the same time delegitimizing blackness. To do this, the author draws on critical race theory, critical whiteness studies, and disability critical race studies to offer a (re)presentation of ELT that many people within the profession’s establishment will be uncomfortable with, and some may be reluctant to accept.

As a concept, whiteness goes beyond the notion of belonging to a specific racial group. In the United States, in particular, it also includes various characteristics and behaviours that tend to be associated with being part of that racial group. Unlike the concept of ‘race’, which limits itself to categorizing people according to perceived physical and (ostensibly) inherited behavioural differences, whiteness focuses on specific characteristics and behaviours, commonly associated with dominant social groups, which are widely presented as neutral—the default or norm from which others deviate—meaning it can be a difficult concept for white people to grasp. Through the lens of whiteness, deviation from this ‘norm’ implies deficiency as well as difference. According to Olcoń, ‘Whiteness therefore implies a power structure, an ideology and a racial identity which confers dominance and privilege’ ( Olcoń 2023 : 4). The area of scholarship known as critical whiteness studies is primarily concerned with exploring the concept of whiteness and exposing its damaging social impact, both in history and in contemporary life. In defining the key concepts of Antisocial Language Teaching , the author equates whiteness and white supremacy, saying there is no functional difference between the two and that ‘whiteness was created to be supreme, as a protection from the oppression that others deserve because of the groups into which they have been placed’ (p. 6).

The main focus of the book is on pathologizing whiteness in ELT. Gerald does not just explore examples of whiteness and problematize their impact on the profession. He presents whiteness as an illness, a disorder that has had a chronically debilitating effect that ‘renders the industry callous, corrupt and cruel’ (back cover). To do this, Gerald uses the American Psychology Association (APA)’s seven criteria for diagnosing antisocial personality disorder to analyse the ideologies and institutions that shape the global ELT profession. According to the book these criteria are used as a rhetorical device, but in effect they form an analytical framework for identifying ‘symptoms’ of whiteness. The use of this framework allows Gerald to present ELT as imperialistic, elitist, racist, dishonest, irresponsible, immoral, and a number of other things besides.

There are three main parts to the book. Part 1 is entitled ‘Disorder’, with seven chapters that mostly provide a historical overview of the social construction of whiteness, its associations with capitalism, its contrast with the (also socially constructed) concept of blackness, and its role in the hegemony of white varieties of English as ‘standard’ and other varieties as ‘inferior’. Part 2 uses the APA’s seven criteria to ‘diagnose’ ELT as an antisocial practice. These criteria are:

Failure to conform to social norms concerning lawful behaviors, such as performing acts that are grounds for arrest.

Deceitfulness, repeated lying, use of aliases, or conning others for pleasure or personal profit.

Impulsivity or failure to plan.

Irritability and aggressiveness, often with physical fights or assaults.

Reckless disregard for the safety of others.

Consistent irresponsibility, failure to sustain consistent work behavior, or honor monetary obligations.

Lack of remorse, being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated or stolen from another person. (pp. 63–109, passim ).

In his analysis, Gerald draws on a mix of existing literature and anecdotal evidence to critically examine common practices in ELT such as the hiring of unqualified teachers based on their ‘nativeness’, the exploitation of teachers through discrimination and deprofessionalization, the ELT profession’s platitudinous response to the Black Lives Matter movement, its role in the spread of colonialism and linguistic imperialism, and the use of ‘standard’ English to pathologize all other varieties and their speakers. Part 3 is entitled ‘Treatment’, and contains just two chapters followed by a conclusion. The first of these chapters offers, as a specific example of how to ‘treat’ ELT, an account of a course that Gerald developed and delivered during the Covid-19 pandemic, entitled ‘Decoding and Decentering Whiteness’. This is followed by a chapter called ‘Prosocial Language Teaching’, which presents seven ideas for decentring whiteness in ELT.

Using the APA’s criteria for antisocial personality disorder to ‘diagnose’ ELT as suffering from a medical condition is, in my view, a very effective framework for presenting Gerald’s thesis. It allows Gerald to turn the tables on ELT, by presenting something that is usually regarded as healthy and innocuous as being, in fact, seriously unwell and very destructive. In ELT, native-speaker varieties of English are idealized, heterosexist lifestyles and cis-gendered identities are normalized, neoliberal ideology and myths of meritocracy are presented uncritically, and racist perceptions of teachers who ‘don’t look like native-speakers’ are pandered to by employers. In this antisocial reality, any alternative positions are seen as subversive and potentially damaging: the acceptance of ‘non-native’ models of English will lead to a loss of standards; the inclusion of LGBTQ+ issues in materials will upset cis-gendered heterosexual learners; questioning the belief that hard work leads to success devalues individualism and entrepreneurialism; and recruiting teachers who do not conform to the idealized (i.e. white ‘native-speaker’) English teacher may lead to financial loss. The use of antisocial personality disorder traits to deconstruct the ELT exposes it as a particularly damaging profession–one that not only fails to address what is wrong with the world, but is actively complicit in causing harm. The idea behind this rhetorical device is good and it is, to a large extent, successful. However, the use of whiteness as the main focus of the book’s critique means that the author is less able to explore areas of ELT that do not easily fit into the APA’s seven criteria, or are less directly related to whiteness. Some of the chapters in Part 2 do not focus on aspects of ELT that you might expect. For example, it is not particularly clear why ‘standard’ varieties of English are the main focus of the chapter relating to reckless disregard for the safety of others. Certainly, negative perceptions of ‘non-standard’ or racialized varieties of English create discriminatory environments that could cause harm to users of those varieties, and I do not intend to belittle this issue. I do feel, though, that other practices, such as publishing companies’ delegitimization of gay people in order to increase market share, is surely a more obvious example of powerful forces in ELT having a reckless disregard for the safety of others. In addition to the symptoms that Gerald attributes to the damaging influence of whiteness in ELT, there are other symptoms that could perhaps be more effectively examined if other factors were more central to the discussion.

One thing that—for me, at least—is missing from this book is an explicit and critical examination of the role of capitalism in ELT. Gerald does make some historical references to capitalism, identifying its links with colonialism and the slave trade. But the role of capitalism in twenty-first-century ELT is connected to many of the problems that Gerald is referring to. A universal and UK/US-centric approach to methodology and materials content has spread globally through accredited, commercial TESOL qualification providers and publishing companies who seek to maximize efficiencies and profits by globalizing their products. The application of (white) ‘native-speaker’ models of English as ‘standard’ is promoted by commercial examining bodies that also aim to have a global reach, and is being exploited by ‘accent reduction training’ entrepreneurs who peddle the myth that it is possible to have a ‘neutral accent’. The motivation to employ white, ‘native-speaker’ teachers is driven by school owners feeling the need to pander to the beliefs and demands of their learners, however misguided and racist they may be. Much of what is wrong with ELT today can quite easily be linked to capitalism and the profit motive. The dismantling of the status quo that the author is calling for, therefore, is unlikely to happen if ELT continues to function within a capitalist paradigm.

Perhaps Gerald would argue that capitalism is itself a symptom of whiteness: a concept devised by white people and designed to control, dominate, and exploit the more vulnerable groups in society. However, the obvious links between whiteness and capitalism are not made as clear as they could be in the book. In fact, Part 3 (entitled ‘Treatment’) seems, if anything, to be largely pro-capitalist. The first chapter in this part presents a course that the author designed and delivered—commercially—online. In this chapter and, seemingly, without any irony, Gerald refers to his students as ‘clients’ (e.g. p. 117). In the following chapter, he proposes that we buy materials from ‘more anti-oppressive companies’ (p. 148), implying an acceptance that we must continue to rely on publishing companies for teaching resources:

The only reason that the publishers continue to create materials that reify these harmful ideas is because they think it’s the most profitable way to operate. Even though we are currently stuck existing within racial capitalism, we do still have the power to band together to affect the almighty market. (p. 148)

Of course, using one’s limited power as a customer to buy less-damaging materials in the hope that this will influence the market is not a bad idea, but only if one believes that consumers can control the market, which entails a belief in neoliberal ideology. It is rather surprising that such a recommendation should be made in a book that, according to one of the testimonials on the back cover, ‘makes a passionate case for demolishing the status quo in English language teaching’. The idea of decentring whiteness while embracing the principles of capitalism at the same time could be seen as rather naive. And in any case, even if market forces did lead to an eradication of ideology associated with white supremacy in ELT materials, other damaging factors associated with the commodification of language teaching would continue to prevail, and the status quo would remain far from demolished.

Having said all of this, there is still relatively little published literature that is concerned with the concept of whiteness in ELT, which makes this an important book in terms of its contribution to the wider discourse problematizing deeply embedded structures and ideologies. Part 2 provides a compelling argument that the ELT profession is seriously unwell, and in need of treatment. What is more, although he does not provide an explicit guide for designing a course that addresses whiteness in the way that Hadley and Boon do for a course in critical thinking, the author’s account of his own course, ‘Decentering and Decoding Whiteness’, provides a useful template that teacher educators can follow to bring anti-whiteness education into their own practice. The syllabus and overall approach are very informative, and could perhaps be adapted and used in a wider range of contexts. This chapter also includes sections depicting how some of the students (or ‘clients’) on this course coped with and reacted to the experience. These sections offer some interesting insights into the application of Freirean principles of critical pedagogy, including some uncomfortable and revelatory critical incidents as students gained a deeper critical understanding of their own positions in society. These accounts suggest that developing their own understanding of whiteness also developed the students' capacities for using antiracist language pedagogies in their own teaching.

Indeed, it may be that my criticism of the book—that it focuses too narrowly on whiteness in ELT and fails to address other, wider issues—exposes my own limited understanding of whiteness as a concept. Coming as I do from a relatively privileged, white British background, it is perhaps difficult for me to appreciate the all-pervasive nature of whiteness, particularly from a North American perspective. I understand white supremacy to be a discriminatory ideology that creates structures which oppress, marginalize, and disadvantage certain people. But the same could be said for heteronormativity, or patriarchy, or ableism, or linguicism. These ideologies can intersect, compounding the extent to which some people are oppressed, but I find it difficult to see how one single ideology, whiteness, is the cause of all the others.

For the final book in this review, I turn to a publication that is concerned with the broad and somewhat nebulous concept of social justice. The issue of social justice and whether it should be a goal in education has proved to be a surprisingly divisive issue. Some educators and policymakers regard the social justice movement as an attempt to indoctrinate learners through the promotion of dangerous ideologies, while others regard it as a means of giving learners the skills to challenge existing, dominant ideologies, which are themselves dangerous in their promotion of structural inequality and oppression. As mentioned elsewhere in this review, ELT has tended to shy away from the inclusion of social justice issues on the basis that they could be interpreted as controversial or create divisiveness in the classroom. Deniz Ortaçtepe Hart’s Social Justice and the Language Classroom: Reflection, Action and Transformation challenges this prevailing attitude by presenting an overview of language teaching for social justice—not simply as a list of topics to focus on now and again, but as an approach that informs all aspects of language education.

The book is divided into three parts. Part I is entitled ‘Language Teaching for Social Justice’, and the four chapters included here introduce key concepts that inform the entire book, particularly hegemony and intersectionality, which are covered in some detail in Chapter 1. Hegemony, the idea that oppressive structures are normalized to ensure that power is retained by those who hold it, is central to the understanding of social injustice as a structural phenomenon, rather than as something that can be attributed to individual behaviours. The main lens through which Ortaçtepe Hart uses to analyse and discuss social justice is intersectionality, a concept used to explore how different features of people’s identities—such as race, gender or disability—combine and influence the types of social injustice they may be affected by. Chapter 2 provides a discussion of social justice education, and introduces an approach to teaching called ‘transformative liberatory education’ (p. 27), which is based heavily on the work of Freire and education for ‘critical consciousness’ ( Freire 2013 ). This approach is all about developing an understanding of the societal structures that locate learners in certain positions in society, and to identify ways of challenging any injustices that they identify. Chapter 3 focuses in on social justice language education, identifying solid justifications for taking a social justice approach to language teaching. These justifications may resonate particularly strongly with readers who are involved in ELT, which has clear associations with colonialism, imperialism, and linguicism. Chapter 4 is concerned with curriculum, exploring the politically charged nature of decisions that affect all aspects of curriculum design and delivery, and justifying the need for social justice to inform all aspects of curriculum rather than being included as a single topic within a syllabus, or tagged on at the end of each lesson.

The three chapters in Part II each focus on critical themes and frameworks: neoliberalism, social class, and anticlassism; race, ethnicity, and antiracist language pedagogy; and social justice pedagogies for all gender and sexual identities. Each chapter starts with a critical analysis of each theme, and then moves on to present some alternative approaches and models. This is perhaps the ‘meatiest’ part of the book; it deconstructs the themes and exposes them as profoundly unjust, as well as deeply embedded. In Chapter 5 the author argues that the pervasive ideology of neoliberalism and the classless society has erased class from any discussion of social justice. Chapter 6 explores how race and ethnicity are socially constructed, and how racialized ideologies are embedded within the curriculum, while racism itself is often presented as a problem with some individuals, rather than in a structural sense. In Chapter 7, standard representations of sex and sexuality are revealed to be overwhelmingly patriarchal and heteronormative, and therefore repressive and unjust. Once exposed in this way, the author explores ways in which a social-justice-oriented approach to language education can orient learners towards different perspectives of these themes. Ortaçtepe Hart proposes an anti-neoliberal framework, and presents this with a view to dismantling classism. According to the author, antiracist pedagogies can be incorporated through practices that focus on the denormalization of whiteness and that seek to dismantle discriminatory systems and policies. By queering language education, a more inclusive curriculum can give legitimacy to families, relationships, and lifestyles that do not conform to the narrow, heteronormative images that languages learners tend to be exposed to.

Part III consists of a single, concluding chapter, which addresses the challenges we face as language educators when it comes to social justice education, before offering some useful ideas for reflection and practical application. It starts with an acknowledgement of the challenges that language educators are likely to face if they wish to take a social justice approach. These include challenges related to changing the attitudes of other stakeholders, accepting that social justice education requires difficult and sometimes painful discussions to take place in the classroom, and issues related to this such as tolerance, and the creation of ‘safe’ spaces. The author then offers some practical considerations on areas such as assessment for learning and the potential role of technology in social justice language education.

Before I go any further in my evaluation of this book, I should disclose that I am a colleague of the author, and also that I have already written an overwhelmingly positive review of this book for another journal. Sceptical readers may feel that my professional relationship with the author makes a positive review inevitable. However, as someone who cares deeply about ELT and its impact on the wider world, I can honestly say this book really speaks to me. The issue of social justice has, for too long, been neglected in most ELT contexts, and it is pleasing to see Ortaçtepe Hart calling for it to be placed at the centre of the language curriculum. It is the ‘all or nothing’ message that appeals to me the most: social justice is not something you can ‘touch on’ now and again. That would be performative social justice education, turning the whole concept into a commodity that can be incorporated into a neoliberal curriculum. No, social justice language education should drive everything: curriculum, materials, methods, assessment—everything.

Of course, this makes social justice language education seem like an impossible task. Most of us (and I include myself) work in contexts that are affected by profit-orientation, the need for efficiency, assessment criteria, policy, market forces, competition, employer expectations, and many other factors which run counter to the principles of a social justice approach. With this in mind, some people might criticize Ortaçtepe Hart’s book for not offering enough practical guidance on how to turn a ‘regular’ language curriculum into a social justice language curriculum. However, as I mentioned in my previous review, this is precisely the point. One of the key problems with the current model of ELT is that it assumes that a single, commodified approach can be applied by all teachers, to all learners, and in all contexts. For Ortaçtepe Hart, the social justice curriculum needs to be participatory, which means it has to be driven by the issues that are most relevant to the learners in each specific context. While Hadley and Boon provide a series of activities and clear guidelines that teachers can apply directly to incorporate critical thinking into ELT, and Gerald presents his own course as an example that can inspire teachers to find their own ways to counter the damaging impact of whiteness, Ortaçtepe Hart deliberately avoids providing readers with any kind of practical model for teachers to apply, or misapply, in whatever context they happen to be in. While this may seem to some like a frustrating omission, it ensures that the book adheres to the theories and pedagogies that it advocates, and forces readers to critically reflect on their own contexts and learners in adopting a social justice approach to language education.

Another key strength of the book is the use of intersectionality to explore the complexities of social (in)justice. It is the way in which different features of people’s individual identities combine to locate them in certain social positions and to affect their capacities for social mobility that creates social injustice in the first place. Although Gerald views the problems of ELT through the lens of whiteness, an intersectional lens allows Ortaçtepe Hart to incorporate not only race and ethnicity but also class, gender and sexual identity, sexuality, and a range of other issues into the discussion.

If I was to offer one criticism of the book, it would be that it could go into more depth to explore not only why social justice has been so neglected in ELT, but also why there continues to be such resistance to social justice language education in a world that is full of injustice, corruption, and exploitation. The concept of hegemony is used throughout the book to present ideas such as colour-blind pedagogies (which effectively deny the existence of racism), heteronormativity, and language ideologies. Nevertheless, it is the deeply embedded nature of these hegemonies, and the way they are controlled by those (usually profit-oriented) forces that benefit from them, that is, to my mind, the root of the problem. Having said that, the book already covers such a wide range of issues, and it could lose its balance and cohesion if it tried to squeeze in even more critical analysis.

All the books in this review follow the premise that ELT is about more than simply teaching and practising language items, systems, and skills, and therefore challenge the long-held belief that neutrality is both possible and preferable. Whereas Hadley and Boon’s Critical Thinking is primarily concerned with developing skills to assess the veracity of content, both inside and outside the classroom, the other books are more focused on the nature of the ELT curriculum itself. Proposing alternatives to existing models, however imperialistic, colonizing, or racist they may be, could simply give way to a different kind of colonization, particularly if they propose alternative ideologies that are popular in the Global North and seek to impose them on the rest of the world ( Selvi 2024 ). However, these publications all take steps to incorporate a global perspective, either by including chapters from diverse authors working in a wide range of contexts, or by including sections that stress the relevance of the issues to all contexts where critical thinking and critical consciousness can address inequities, injustices, and misinformation.

Of course, reading these books individually could give the impression that the problem with ELT is narrower than it actually is. Hadley and Boon tell us that there is a lack of focus on critical thinking. Reading Ludwig and Summer allows you to identify deficiencies in the range of topics being explored. Banegas and Govender’s book leads us to conclude that we need to do more to address issues of sexuality and gender identity. For Gerald, the problems in ELT are grounded in racism and the hegemony of whiteness. The reality, however, is that all of these problems exist, and they are all interconnected. Only Ortaçtepe Hart attempts to bring these issues together under the umbrella of social justice; this allows her to write about race, gender and sexuality, class, and how hegemonic forces have led to the construction of a pedagogical approach that is devoid of criticality and perpetuates inequity. Perhaps what our profession needs is more literature that aims to develop a clearer understanding of the bigger picture: the wide-ranging nature of hegemony and the fact that rather than exposing and challenging social injustice, ELT has been complicit in its global spread.

In addition to the main themes of each book, a recurring issue is the role of globalization and neoliberal capitalism in our profession. The dominant forces in ELT are motivated more by commercial success than by effective teaching practice. A reluctance to challenge the status quo, therefore, is understandable when the current system yields so much profit for the corporations who are responsible for designing the teacher education courses, creating the materials, and providing the assessments that measure our students’ success.

Nevertheless, the long-prevalent myth of neutrality in ELT, and the concomitant avoidance of critical engagement with real social and environmental problems, is losing credibility as the need for a more critically conscious approach becomes increasingly urgent. These books highlight something that is not discussed often enough in the global ELT profession: the fact that English language teachers are more than facilitators of procedure—we are educators. Of course, the primary purpose is to teach the language. We need to help our students to communicate ideas more effectively in English. But what ideas? And to what end? Are we happy to simply give people the language skills that allow them to play the system to their advantage, when the system itself is failing? These books all encourage us to reflect on our individual and collective responsibility as language educators, to develop our students’ capacities to problematize local and global issues, and to effect positive change in the world. Surely that is the purpose of education, and it is becoming abundantly clear that this is what the world needs more than it ever has before.

Steve Brown has worked in English language teaching since 1993. He started his career as a volunteer before spending several years in private language schools in Central Europe and South Africa. He returned to Scotland in 2001 and had a long career in the further education sector, before moving to higher education in 2018. Steve has held various management, leadership and teacher development positions, and is currently a lecturer in TESOL at the University of Glasgow. His research interests include materials analysis, curriculum design, ESOL policy, and ELT as emancipatory practice.

Email : [email protected]

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Abdelmajid Jamiai Dr., Faculty of Languages, Arts and Human Sciences, Hassan First University, Settat, Morocco

Dr. Abdelmajid Jamiai is a Professor of English Applied Linguistics at the Faculty of Languages, Arts and Human Sciences, Hassan First University of Settat, Morocco. His main research and training interest are Applied Linguistics, mainly Innovative Pedagogies, E-learning, Soft Skills, Critical Thinking Education, Gender and Education and Online Human Behavior in Virtual Learning Communities (VLCs).

Abderrahim El Karfa Dr., Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences of Dhar AL Mahraz, Sidi Mohamed ben Abdellah University, Fes, Morocco

Dr. Abderrahim El Karfa is a Professor of English and Applied Linguistics in the Department of English at the Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences, Sidi Mohammed Ben Abdellah University, Fez, Morocco. His main research and training interests are Applied Linguistics, Leadership and Education, Language Education Policy, Citizenship Education, Lifelong Learning, Critical Thinking Education, Gender and Education, and Education for Sustainable Development.

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Practicing Critical Thinking: Issues and Challenges

• First Online: 04 September 2024

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• K. Venkat Reddy 3 &
• G. Suvarna Lakshmi 4  

Despite acknowledging the importance of teaching or promoting critical thinking as part of education, practicing critical thinking in the real world and life has its own challenges to be resolved. Some of them are presented in the studies included in this chapter. The first article is on the gap between the perceptions on cognitive active learning of teachers and learners. The focus of the study is on exploring learners’ perceptions on deep learning particularly in Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). Instructors facing organizational difficulties, lack of experience in synchronous learning for the students, unable to have peer interaction while learning in VLE, inadequate training for the instructors and students to teach and learning virtually, students’ not experiencing the benefits of deep learning are among the major gaps or problems identified in this study. The second article is about techniques that enhance higher order thinking skills in EFL learners by using post-reading strategies resulting in better speech production and reasoning power. The output of the research states that concept mapping and argumentation enhance EFL learners’ reasoning power when private speech is used to understand the process of thinking. The third article in this chapter is on cross-cultural psychology where the cultural influence on making inferences and participating in debates by Asian students who are studying in western institutions. Though there are intercultural differences in the inferences made because of cultural backgrounds and first language variations, they are insignificant. Then the reasons for obvious differences could be learning environment, literacy and higher education. The statement that Asian students are unable to perform well in western logic might be true not because the Asian students are less capable of thinking critically but because they are not trained in or used to western logical problems. The last article of this chapter is on assessment of critical thinking in first year dental curriculum that establishes the importance of critical thinking in dental education. The assessment is on the importance of critical thinking and the need to change the curriculum incorporating critical thinking.

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Reddy, K.V., Lakshmi, G.S. (2024). Practicing Critical Thinking: Issues and Challenges. In: Reddy, K.V., Lakshmi, G.S. (eds) Critical Thinking for Professional and Language Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37951-2_5

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Creative and Critical Thinking in Language Classrooms

Introduction, creative and critical language learners, what is needed, attitude towards students, attitude towards pedagogy, attitude towards themselves (as teachers), how it is achieved.

• Describe the content of discussion
• Find creative options to the situations or problems
• Boyce, M.E. (1996). Teaching Critically as an Act of Praxis and Resistance. http://newton.uor.edu/FacultyFolder/Mboyce/1CRIPTED.HTM

Using Precise Terminology to Encourage Thinking

Encouraging Learners to Think About Thinking

A Sample Activity A: Problem-posing

• Think creatively and critically
• Why are there so many 'things' flying over the bin?

A Sample Activity B: Decision Making

• Can this trial be thrown out? Why?

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Integrating Critical Thinking in Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL)

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English as a Foreign Language Teachers’ Critical Thinking Ability and L2 Students’ Classroom Engagement

Critical thinking has been the focus of many studies considering the educational and social contexts. However, English as a foreign language (EFL) context is the one in which studies about critical thinking and its link to classroom engagement have not been carried out as much as expected. Hence, this study investigated to understand the association between EFL teachers’ critical thinking ability and students’ classroom engagement to get a broader understanding of the impact critical thinking has on students’ success. To do this, firstly, both variables of this study are defined and explicated. Then, the relationship between critical thinking and students’ classroom engagement is discussed. Finally, the implications of this research and also its limitations along with suggestions for further studies are put forward.

Introduction

“Critical thinking enables individuals to use standards of argumentation, rules of logic, standards of practical deliberation, standards governing inquiry and justification in specialized areas of study, standards for judging intellectual products, etc.” ( Bailin et al., 1999 , p. 291). Paul and Elder (2007) conceptualized critical thinking as the art of analysis and evaluation, considering the point that it can be improved since a quality life needs the quality of thinking. Facione (2011) noted that happiness cannot be guaranteed even if good judgment is practiced and critical thinking is enhanced; however, it undoubtedly offers more opportunities for this goal to be achieved. It has been stressed that autonomy can be shaped through critical thinking ability and one’s learning process can critically be evaluated ( Delmastro and Balada, 2012 ). According to a study conducted by Marin and Pava (2017) , English as a foreign language (EFL) critical thinker has the following characteristics: they are active, continuously asking questions, and seeking information which helps them build associations between L2 learning and other features of everyday life. They describe as people, having the capability to analyze and organize thoughts that can be expressed through speaking and writing. They almost always tries to put what has learned before into practice. Beyond doubt, in order to enhance critical thinking skill in EFL learners, teachers should consider the point that teaching is not just about grammar and vocabulary; instead, it concentrates on enhancing teaching, encouraging to be creative, encourage to learn independently, strategies for making decisions and evaluating himself. Similarly, opportunities must be provided by the educators to provide a learning environment in which autonomous learning, active engagement, reflection on learners’ learning process, and L2 advancement are emphasized, for instance, task-based activities. Thus, this study is different from other studies since the focus is placed on teachers’ critical thinking ability to help students thrive rather than students’ critical thinking ability. The reason is that differentiates it from the previous studies is that providing students with opportunities, in which thinking differently is appreciated, would be absolutely rewarding and it is the skill that should be much more highlighted in the studies. Therefore, critical thinking is a skill through which students’ confidence can be raised, leading to their active engagement in the classroom and their being successful since they can see the issues from a different point of view and novel solutions to those problems can be proposed. In the current study, first of all, both teachers’ critical thinking ability and students’ classroom engagement have been discussed. Given that, the association between these two variables has been dealt with. Then, the implications and restrictions of the study as well as some recommendations for further studies have been proposed.

Teachers’ Critical Thinking Ability

Critical thinking has attracted much attention since teachers’ way of thinking and beliefs has a pivotal impact on what students achieve in terms of academic success and attainments. Dewey (1933 , p. 9), who can be regarded as the father of modern critical thinking, conceptualized it as “active, persistent, and careful of a belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds which support it and the further conclusions to which it tends.” As defined by Chance (1986) , critical thinking is conceptualized as the capability that one puts into practice to do the followings through this ability: facts which are analyzed, ideas that are generated and organized, opinions that are defended, comparisons that are made, inferences that are drawn, arguments which are evaluated, ideas that are organized, and problems that are solved. As stated by Vdovina and Gaibisso (2013) , critical thinking is relevant to quality thinking that enables learners to communicate with others, gain knowledge, and deal with ideas, attitudes, and beliefs in a more skillful way. Based on what has been proposed by Shirkhani and Fahim (2011) , critical thinking is an integral factor in many ways. The first reason that can be taken into consideration is that when language learners take responsibility for the way they think; they can evaluate the way they learn in a more successful way. Secondly, critical thinking causes learners to experience a meaningful process of learning in which learning a language is meaningful to them. Thirdly, critical thinking and learners’ achievement are positively correlated. If the learners are shown how to think critically, they get proficient in learning a language. Likewise, Liaw (2007) study indicated that when the content-based approach is implemented in the class, it promotes EFL students’ critical thinking skills. It should be noted that in a content-based approach, attention is focused on the content and what can be perceived through it.

Besides, as Davidson (1998) noted, “the English teachers are expected to provide learners with the ability to communicate with native speakers, valuing overt comments, clever criticism, and intellectual claims.” In a similar manner, Meyers (1986) proposed that teachers can facilitate critical thinking through the activities that are assigned, the tasks that are set, and the feedback that is provided. A study done in a Chinese context by Li and Liu (2021) put forward the taxonomy of critical thinking ability in the EFL learning context and in this study, five skills through which critical thinking can be practiced, were proposed: analyzing, inferring, evaluating, synthesizing, and self-reflection/self-correction ( Wang and Derakhshan, 2021 ). Li (2021) also indicated that the development of critical thinking in international students can be facilitated by learning Chinese. According to a study done by Birjandi and Bagherkazemi (2010) , a critical thinker has the following characteristics:

• • problems are identified by them and relevant solutions are dealt with,
• • valid and invalid inferences are recognized by them,
• • decisions and judgments are suspended by them when there is not enough evidence to prove it
• • the difference between logical reasoning and justifying is perceived by them
• • relevant questions are asked by them to see if their students have understood
• • statements and arguments are evaluated
• • lack of understanding can be accepted by them
• • they have developed a sense of curiosity
• • clear criteria for analyzing ideas are defined
• • he is a good listener and gives others feedback
• • he believes that critical thinking is a never-ending process that needs to be evaluated
• • judgment is suspended by them until all facts have been collected
• • they seek evidence for the assumptions to be advocated
• • opinions are adjusted by them when there are some new facts
• • incorrect information is easily rejected by them.

Consequently, according to the characteristics mentioned above, teachers with the ability to think critically is good problem solvers and when facing a problem during the class, they can have greater reasoning skills so as to find a solution to the problem. They are curious and they also ask their students questions to create a sense of curiosity in them. Additionally, they do not accept the new ideas easily, instead, they analyze them and sometimes make them better.

Classroom Engagement

Engagement is an inseparable part of the learning process and a multifold phenomenon. Classroom engagement refers to the amount of participation that students take in the class to be actively involved in the activities and whether the mental and physical activities have a goal. Engagement itself is a context-oriented phrase which relies on cultures, families, school activities, and peers ( Finn and Zimmer, 2012 ). It has been categorized into different groups: Behavioral engagement such as the amount to which students participate actively in the class; emotional engagement pertains to high levels of enthusiasm which is linked to high levels of boredom and anxiety; cognitive engagement such as the usage of learning strategy and self-regulation; agentic engagement such as the amount of conscious effort so that the learning experience would be enriched ( Wang and Guan, 2020 ; Hiver et al., 2021 ). Amongst the aforementioned categories, the one which is strongly important in the learning process is behavioral engagement in that it is relevant to the actual recognition of an individual’s learning talents ( Dörnyei, 2019 ). Another possibility that can be viewed is to consider engagement from two other aspects, internal and external. The former implies how much time and effort is allocated to the process of the learning. The latter entails the measures that are taken at the institutional level so that the resources would be dealt with along with other options of learning and services for support, encouraging the involvement in activities leading to the possible outcomes such as consistency and satisfaction ( Harper and Quaye, 2009 ).

Much attention is deserved to be paid to engagement since it is perceived as a behavioral means with which students’ motivation can be realized and as a result, development through the learning process can occur ( Jang et al., 2010 ). Active involvement should be strengthened in L2 classes to prevent disruptive behaviors and diminish the valence of emotions that are negative such as feeling anxious, frustrated, and bored.

Regarding “classroom engagement,” its opposie word “disengagement” can play a significant role in not engaging the students in the class, leading to them feeling bored and demotivated in the class, so from this aspect, it would be worth considering this phrase as well. It has been claimed by some authors ( Skinner, 2016 ) that disengagement itself does not happen frequently in educational settings due largely to the fact that it is related to extreme behaviors, and it is when another phrase disaffection can be considered significant. Disaffection is characterized by disinterest, aversion, resignation, and reduced effort. Therefore, our perception of boredom as a complex emotion can be enhanced, and it can be dealt with more systematically if boredom is viewed through the following factors, disengagement, and disaffection ( Wang and Guan, 2020 ; Derakhshan et al., 2021 ). As Elder and Paul (2004) mentioned, students should be taught to actively make questions- that is a good emblem of engagement- which is a radical part of critical thinking. The more the students can question, the more they can learn. Some students get accustomed to memorizing the facts and have never been faced with the outcomes of the poor decisions they made since there is always someone to back them and they had better be challenged, being questioned by their teachers ( Rezaei et al., 2011 ).

The Relationship Between Teachers’ Critical Thinking Ability and Classroom Engagement

Critical thinking has been said to widen one’s horizon because it may shape students’ mindsets and help them take a look at items from a different viewpoint. When one has learned to think critically, they will never accept the status quo easily, he will welcome the opposing ideas and will evaluate the arguments. In the EFL context, when a learner has the capability to think critically, or he has been taught to think critically, he always looks for reasons learning new materials and in this respect, his curiosity allows him to learn everything in depth and challenge his schemata to make a link between the newly learned ideas and the ones he has already known. Critical thinking is not a term that can be utilized just for the specific type of people; it can be taught and practiced to be enhanced. The way ideas can be generated and the way comparisons can be made is highly relevant to what has been called critical thinking. Different items can be conceptualized in different ways when we look at them through the lens of critical thinking; therefore, it can have a positive effect on students’ mindsets and the way they live. From an educational point of view, the decisions that have been made by the students, the solutions that have been put forward to tackle a problem when it comes to a learning context, and the way through which their process of learning is ameliorated are all impacted by teachers’ critical thinking. When teachers think critically and they strive to see different skills from a different point of view, it is where students’ sense of curiosity is tickled and their imagination is stretched so as to think of things in a various way.

Implications and Further Suggestions for Research

Critical thinking is believed to have an enormous effect on students’ classroom engagement. As mentioned above, according to Dewey (1933) , the more the students practice thinking critically, the more successful they are in terms of academic achievements because they can decide more rationally, and their problems can be addressed more sensibly. Attention should be paid that this study is of great significance for those people who are engaged in the learning process including those devising curriculums, develop materials, teachers, and learners. Critical thinking is a skill that should be developed in learners so that they would compare and contrast ideas, and as a result, decide wisely and accomplish what they have planned for. Accordingly, opportunities must be provided by the educators to provide a learning environment in which autonomous learning, active engagement, reflection on learners’ learning process, and L2 advancement are emphasized, for example, task-based activities ( Han and Wang, 2021 ).

Additionally, further studies can be done to find more about the variables in this study.

With regard to various age groups, the understanding of critical thinking might be different. Teenagers are said to start thinking critically and hypothetically; however, undoubtedly there is a big difference between what can be perceived about critical thinking by teenagers and adolescents in the educational contexts. Consequently, how different levels of critical thinking can be conceptualized in the learning context is one of the studies that can be conducted in the future. Secondly, teachers’ success and well-being are also tremendously affected by the way they think. Therefore, from this point of view, a study can be conducted in the future so as to find the correlation between teachers’ critical thinking and other aspects of their lives. The reason why this study should be carried out is that considering the L2 environment, students’ way of thinking is impacted by how they are treated by their teachers. Teachers are supposed to equip students with techniques through which the learning process will be facilitated and students’ creativity will be boosted, therefore, it is what helps them to be critical thinkers both in the classroom context and out of it. Another line of research that is worth being done is that diverse activities that can enhance learners’ ability of critical thinking should be categorized based on learners’ characters. In a modern educational world where individual differences are emphasized, classroom activities should be classified, regarding the learning differences of the learners. Therefore, according to Birjandi and Bagherkazemi (2010) ; Vdovina and Gaibisso (2013) , and Li and Liu (2021) , teachers’ critical thinking ability play a vital role in how students are engaged in the class.

Author Contributions

The author confirms being the sole contributor of this work and has approved it for publication.

Conflict of Interest

The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher’s Note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

This review was supported by the Social Science Foundation of Hebei Province of China “Testing and Research on Critical Thinking Ability of Undergraduates in Hebei Province under the Background of ‘Belt and Road’ Education Action” (Project Number: HB20YY017).

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