UNDERSTANDING CRITICAL THINKING AS A COGNITIVE APPROACH TO PRODUCTIVE LEARNING AND RESEARCH PARADIGM IN ELT / EAP CLASSROOM

Abstract

Critical thinking skills in 21^st Century (CTs) is a global movement and policy making to study the effective factors that make the educational system efficient. The latter is still built around a debate of methodology and application in Congolese educational frame‐ work. In fact, ELT and EAP teachers have been found not to have enough skills in creativity in innovating their lessons when attempting to guide learners in English Language Learning. On the one hand, some teachers, novice and practitioners quit the teaching career since they find it mostly difficult and others resist to participate in the curriculum development. On the other hand, students who have been involved in Academic English Language Classroom learning for 5 Years end up by not sensibly developing their communicative competence. Consequently the teachers tend to accuse the learners of inability to perform in satisfactory way. This attitude is due to teachers’ automatic application of traditional methods, such as, grammar translation, audio-lingual method, total physical response, counseling learning, communicative methods, and others. A large number of researchers have been writing in this area such as the case of Parham Aarabi (2011) with Art of Lecturing, Ruth Pickford (2004) with primary role of lecturer, Keerthi Gopinath (2014) teaching as a teacher controlled and information centered approach yet not enough attention has been given to critical thinking skills etc, this article has enriched the debate by strongly appealing to ELT and EAP teachers, learners and trainee teachers and teachers and applied linguists to a paradigm shift from inactive to productive learning with Critical thinking as a cognitive approach which enables learning to be more enjoyable, productive and working towards the ultimate academic goals of participative and productive curriculum development. Since DRC educational system is built upon lecturing method whereby the teacher’s task is simplified as self-centered and dominating approach, this in turn will not be conducive to an enjoyable learning environment. The present paper raises the question of critical thinking skills connect with productive learning. To meet this question, the study has applied qualitative method grounded in classroom observation, interviews, learning theory criticism. As a result, Critical Thinking Skills have been viewed as a flexible framework that acts as practical tool for planning and developing progressive appropriate classroom materials that encourage effective and active learning, and thus enhance more active learning. Therefore, they help students to become more productive in Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing Skills as well as developing learning ability, professionalism, work ethics, team work, collaborative learning, and applying technology, problem-solving and promote students’ leadership. In doing so, furthermore, teachers may design courses that will take students from one cognitive level to the next and develop their critical thinking skills in which more emphasis is placed on learner-centered practices showing sensitivity to individual differences among students, including both teacher’s and student’s role-play engagement in lesson comprehension and use towards problem-solving, in-depth analysis, creativity and decision-making.