Reasoning Critical Thinking: Is It Born or Made?

Abstract

There is a heated debate over whether critical thinking can be taught in the educational field for the reasons that its definition is seldom comprehensively given and universally accepted by the academia, as well as its value and impacts on the development of learners’ critical thinking skills. Focusing on the practical use of critical thinking, the main concern in this paper is whether critical thinking can be taught, particularly in an EFL classroom. The reflection on several conceptions and characteristics of critical thinking will be firstly introduced. When discussing these accounts, the reasons that why it is challenging to teach critical thinking as well as why it can be taught in previous relevant literature will be presented. Then the current situations of critical thinking skills taught in the classroom, taking a Chinese EFL classroom for an example, will be illustrated and finally the reasons why it is popular as a tool in teaching and learning will be discussed.