DEVELOPING 21ST-CENTURY CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS IN LANGUAGE LEARNERS THROUGH ACADEMIC RESEARCH AND LIBRARY RESOURCES

The ability to evaluate information, construct reasoned arguments and reflect on one’s own thinking is widely recognised as a core competence of the twenty-first century. For language learners this ability is particularly important, because they must process authentic texts in a foreign language while producing coherent academic discourse. This article examines how critical thinking can be developed in language learners through two interrelated resources: academic research tasks and library-based information resources. Using a structured narrative review of theoretical and empirical literature published between 1910 and 2019, the study identifies the components of critical thinking most relevant to language learning, analyses how research tasks and library resources support them, and proposes a four-stage instructional framework (Inquire, Locate, Evaluate, Produce) for university language courses. The findings suggest that critical thinking and language proficiency develop most effectively together when learners work on authentic research tasks supported by teachers and librarians.