The Interplay between Critical Pedagogy and Critical Thinking: Theoretical Ties and Practicalities

The main goal of education is believed to be transformation. A system should be dynamic in order to be transformative. Dynamism pumps blood to the body of the society. What prevents a society from transformation is passivity, which leads to lethargy and stagnation. Language teaching has an integral role in fostering criticality and denouncing passivity since language deals with words and words trigger reflection and action. The recent cooperation between language teaching studies and other disciplines such as psychology, sociology, politics, culture studies and philosophy underscores the significant role of language, discourse studies and applied linguistics in the educational system. Language pedagogues and material developers are accountable to bring this idea to the learners’ awareness. The present article aims at shedding light on the concepts and research areas of critical pedagogy and critical thinking and the interplay between these two concepts.