The paper highlights some implicit objectives of the educational process in general and of the foreign language courses and seminars, in particular. As a complementary or non-compulsory discipline, the foreign language aims at developing some transdisciplinary competences such as self-concept, critical thinking, autonomy and innovative/creative thinking. We will analyze a series of relationships which impact the educational process and its outcomes: the student's relationship with him/herself, the student-teacher relationship, the student-peer relationship. We show that the first relationship has a significant impact on the other two. Starting from concepts like self-motivation, self-efficacy, self-sabotage, we will argue that profoundly subjective attitudes model the students' perspective on the educational process. Self-concept is a key ingredient of the academic success and being aware of the individual factors that favour or hinder it is a constant objective of all educational curricula and disciplines. Critical thinking represents another fundamental competence we will discuss in the paper. This competence translates into a desirable mental attitude which supports making critical decisions both in an academic and professional context as well as in personal life. We hold that critical thinking is closely related to design thinking and integrative thinking whose development is a major objective for us, as teachers, as well.

self-awareness; self-concept; self-sabotage; critical thinking; innovation; creativity.