Thinking skills and creativity in second language acquisition: Insights from an action research study

Abstract This study explored how structured interventions in teacher education could raise student teachers' awareness of thinking skills and creativity, enabling them to implement these competencies in their own instructional practices in second/foreign language classrooms. A mixed‐methods approach of statistical analysis and thematic analysis was used to analyse the data sets collected by means of a questionnaire and semi‐structured interviews. Thirty upper intermediate‐level student teachers of English were trained on the key domains of thinking skills and creativity including fluency, originality, elaboration, flexibility, problem‐solving and critical thinking in an 8‐week action research framework. The study findings highlighted the effectiveness of the structured weekly interventions in enhancing the student teachers' instructional competence to foster critical thinking and creativity across all measured domains in second language instructional contexts. While originality, elaboration, critical thinking and problem‐solving emerged as strong domains, some challenges in fluency and flexibility underscored the need for more targeted strategies. The results not only validated the effectiveness of the interventions but also contributed significant insights into the development of thinking skills and creativity in second language acquisition contexts. The study findings may also support a pedagogical paradigm shift in second language acquisition by offering a replicable framework for integrating higher order thinking and creative skills into teacher training programmes.