<![CDATA[Critical thinking is acknowledged to be essential for the educators of the 21st century. Consistent with this, this research project aimed to evaluate the critical thinking abilities of third-year students of the English Teacher Training Programme at a Chilean university, who completed their initial two years of academic instruction exclusively online due to the COVID-19 pandemic. During the diagnosis stage, these pre-service teachers were asked to write a short essay about a topic covered in class. This phase showed participants’ lack of comprehension of the topics as their essays tended to address the issues superficially and present weak arguments, and pre-test results confirmed this. Therefore, four pedagogical interventions were designed and implemented throughout the term, using academic writing as a tool to develop critical thinking abilities. These interventions consisted of continuous feedback on the participants’ writings, an academic writing course, attendance at a webinar on critical thinking and English language teaching, and group reflection sessions. The results of the post-test showed significant improvement in both content organisation and the quality of the arguments presented in the essays. The participants demonstrated a more critical and analytical approach to addressing the topics of their writings, demonstrating a significant progress in their analytical reasoning skills. This research highlights the importance of addressing and strengthening critical thinking skills in pre-service teachers, especially after being immersed in a virtual education context. The pedagogical interventions implemented proved to be effective in improving participants’ critical reasoning, representing a valuable contribution to their future teaching practice.]]>
