Critical Thinking In Language Teaching At The Higher Institute Of Languages, National University Of Asunción, Paraguay

Resumen

One of the most important goals in higher education is to prepare professionals, especially in education, who able to develop critical thinking skills in order to promote citizenship and meet the challenges of a globalized and ever-changing world. This article presents the results of the first stage of a participatory action-research study which involves teachers and students from five degree programs at the Higher Institute of Languages from the National University of Asunción. Teachers’ perspectives on their practices were gathered through a questionnaire designed by Estigarribia et. al. (2019), and were analyzed in relation to the development of critical thinking skills. The results show that, teachers in the language courses evaluate their critical thinking skills in a mostly positive way, with overall averages per skill that were 3.7 to 4.6 on a scale of 1 to 5. However, this is not always related to the practices they indicate to perform with their students. The highest number of significant correlations was found in the category "problem solving" where positive correlations were found between self-assessment of skills and teaching practice. According to this initial survey, interventions that promote the development of critical thinking will be planned and implemented with university students in language careers, to be later evaluated in relation to the attitudes and actions found in this first stage.