Critical thinking as a social practice: the interrelationship between critical thinking engagement, social interaction, and cognitive maturity

Abstract EN

One determining factor for developing social competence is to set up the thinking pedagogy which can provide essential conditions for making reasoning, innovation, and constructing knowledge.

Ultimately, social constructivists affirmed and believed that constructing knowledge can be through engaging in meaningful contexts, social interaction, and life experiences, thing that traditional pedagogies might have failed to achieve for developing students' active role in education and improving their thinking skills and cognitive abilities as critical thinkers.

Critical thinking has emerged as one of the most highly valued skills to enable self-directed lifelong and innovative learning in higher education.

In effect, educationalists have managed to use appropriate ways to develop critical thinking skills in EFL contexts; although no single method has emerged as the most efficient, some seem to be effective when properly implemented.

The theoretical target investigation aimed at examining the potential of learning around the social perspective of critical thinking in Algerian higher education.

It therefore emphasizes a set of teaching strategies and management practices which might be goal directed in stimulating critical thinking and may be applicable to EFL classrooms which are interactive, communicative, social, and cooperative learning strategies which might regularly lead to achieving self-guided learning.