Abstract:

This paper discusses the topic of learning in a school context in an interdisciplinary and comparative perspective. It will present the results of an ongoing study between education and cognitive neuroscience areas on the role of language in the development of critical thinking skill from the perspective of teaching and learning, based on data from a social and experimental context.

The study is related to the discussion about teaching by competences that has been present in education in recent years. Such a model expects students to be capable of mobilizing knowledge of different kinds at the end of a certain cycle of studies (UNESCO, 2017) to live and act effectively in society. Some authors argue that without a set of competencies and skills, young people are at risk of not finding decent living and working conditions as societies will be unable to develop economically (OECD, 2018, 2019).

At the curricular level, the mother tongue teaching in secondary education in countries such as Portugal, Brazil, Angola, Spain, Germany, France and England is closely related to the development of a set of skills (OECD, 2018, 2019) and transversal competences (UNESCO, 2019, 2017). The most frequent are the cognitive and metacognitive skills (OECD, 2018) critical thinking, creativity, understanding of other cultures, learning to learn and self-regulation (Dantas et al, 2022). Among the skills identified, critical thinking was the only one present in all curricula, following previous studies that pointed to critical thinking as one of the central skills in the debate on key competences for the 21st century (Dwyer, Hogan, & Stuart, 2014). How can skills be taught? How can mother tongue teaching contribute to their development?

Language is a complex social phenomena and a cognitive function that distinguishes humans from the other species. As a code shared by the set of its speakers, language allows the communication, the construction of socially shared meanings considered necessary and valid for a society at a given socio-historical context (Bronckart, 2007). As referred by Bronckart (2006, p.10), “Situated language practices (or discourse-texts) are the main instruments of human development, both in relation to knowledge and in relation to the capacities of acting and identity”.

Method - a mixed methodology with a qualitative and quantitative approach is used. It combines the techniques of multiple case studies, the application of Critical Thinking Test and an electrophysiological study to address the following research questions:
1) how teaching practices foster the development of skills in mother tongue classes?;
2) what are the levels of critical thinking of secondary students and how do these levels relate to the mother tongue teaching practices reported by teachers?;
3) what is the role of language in cognitive tasks involved in critical thinking?

The crossing of the results of different data collection and analysis strategies as also of the epistemic paradigms of education and cognitive neuroscience intends to be a contribute to a broader understanding of the role of language in learning in a school context as well as to contribute to the reinforcement of synergies between different areas of knowledge that will make possible to plan educational models for maximize learning for all.

Keywords:

Language, learning, critical thinking, pedagogical practices.