To improve the effectiveness of English teaching and learning, it is necessary for learners to develop critical thinking skills. Despite being a common-used skill of students worldwide, it has not been effectively acquired by Vietnamese students when using English textbooks as Life Pre-Intermediate (Vietnam edition). Using the methodological triangulation, we set the task of helping English learners and their teachers in conceiving, designing, implementing and operating critical thinking construction in the textbook, and in relevance to their background knowledge. The results of a survey of freshmen at Vinh University show that the participants' capacity of critical thinking, their embodied experience and learning methods are rather far from what the textbook requires. Therefore, the essential way to learning and teaching English as a second language with Life Pre-Intermediate is to re-recognize and adhere to the principles of foreign language teaching and learning, and that teachers need to play the role of advisors.