CRITICAL THINKING IN ENGLISH TEACHER TRAINING: COI MODEL AND FREIRE'S CRITICAL PEDAGOGY

Abstract

This case study explored the teaching and learning of critical thinking skills within a preservice English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teacher training program at a public distance university in Costa Rica. A theoretical framework with the interaction of the Community of Inquiry model (CoI), Freire’s Critical Pedagogy (FCP), and collaborative leadership (CL), understood as “leading collaboratively” (Garrison, 2016), was presented as an original Convergent Theoretical model. The research question was answered by means of interviews with preservice teacher students, a teacher mentor, and administrative authorities; online questionnaires; non-participatory class observation; and artifact analysis during one term. Data was analyzed applying Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and the Critical Case Study (CCS) methods. As main results, critical thinking skills were taught and learned in the classroom, and the three theoretical spheres were present in class activities as democratic dialogue, problem posing, problem solving, role switching, and the belief of teachers as agents of social change. However, FCP was incomplete because participants were not aware of Freire’s ideas. Thus, the Convergent model was modified to propose a post-Freirean Critical Pedagogy (pFCP) instead, which is introduced by the researcher as a meta-tool for learning, teaching, and applying critical thinking skills for freedom in the preservice teacher training distance education classroom, and the teacher-students’ own reflective professional practice (Quesada, 2005).