Preparing pre-service language teachers to teach critical thinking: Can overseas field school experience make a difference?

Abstract This qualitative study examines how four pre-service language teachers learned about CT and CT teaching through engaging in overseas field school experience in New Zealand. Informed by relevant literature on CT and a Vygotskyan sociocultural perspective, the study revealed that overseas field school experience was facilitative for the student teachers to foster CT skills and dispositions and cultivate CT-oriented pedagogies. The student teachers mostly developed a sense of agency to tackle contextual constraints and integrate CT with their future language teaching. The findings have implications for preparing pre-service teachers to teach CT through overseas immersion programs.