The Portrait of a Graduate is Clear: Students Must Become Critical Thinkers.
By Dr. Marisol Marcin, Founder & CEO of Lenguas Club
While many current forms of assessment measure memorization and mechanical knowledge of a topic, the portrait of a graduate asks students to become critical thinkers. This implies that they should be able to go beyond being recipients of knowledge and become active agents of their learning.
But here’s the question every educator faces:
HOW do we actually teach critical thinking?
The answer is through navigating real uncertainty.
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Language Learning as A Critical Thinking Lab
Language education creates the perfect environment for critical thinking to emerge, but only when students are pushed beyond scripted dialogues and pre-packaged responses.
Critical thinking develops when learners must:
• Interpret meaning without direct translation
• Navigate ambiguity in real-time conversation
• Analyze cultural context to understand intent
• Synthesize unfamiliar structures to express original ideas
These aren’t skills we can lecture about. They emerge through action.
When a student tries to explain a concept they don’t have vocabulary for yet, they’re problem-solving.
When they misunderstand a cultural reference and work to clarify, they’re analyzing context.
When they encounter a phrase that doesn’t translate directly and must find another way, they are thinking critically.
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Critical Thinking Requires Real Challenges
Here’s the problem with traditional language instruction:
If every question has one “correct” answer, students aren’t thinking, they’re recalling.
Critical thinking emerges when students face authentic challenges:
✓ Conversations with real speakers who use unfamiliar expressions
✓ Cultural misunderstandings that require clarification
✓ Real-time decisions about tone, formality, and appropriateness
✓ Moments where “what I want to say” doesn’t match “what I know how to say”
These moments of productive struggle are where critical thinking is born. You can’t script them. You can’t simulate them with a textbook. You create them by inviting real people into your learning space.
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Bringing Authentic Voices into The Classroom
To develop critical thinkers, we must give students access to unscripted, authentic interaction.
Locally, this means connecting with community members for genuine conversation.
When local access is limited, technology bridges the gap.
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Virtual connections, whether through a colleague’s network or vetted programs like Lenguas Club, provide students with real people who don’t follow textbook scripts:
✓ Native speakers who use idioms that students haven’t studied
✓ Cultural perspectives that challenge assumptions
✓ Conversations that require real-time interpretation and adaptation
✓ Moments where students must think, not just repeat
These are more than “enrichment activities.” They’re critical thinking in action.
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It’s Time to Design for Uncertainty
If we want students to become critical thinkers, we must intentionally create opportunities for them to navigate authentic challenges, not just study them.
The Portrait of a Graduate demands more than right answers.
It demands the ability to think through what we don’t yet know.
Language education, done right, is one of the most powerful ways to build that skill.
How do YOU create opportunities for critical thinking in your language classroom?
Let’s discuss how authentic conversation can transform student thinking.
📧 info@lenguasclub.com
📞 607-682-2624
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