The development of creative and critical thinking is seen as an encouragement to independent and student-centred learning. But what exactly do we mean when we talk about creative and critical thinking? When and why did these terms come into prominence in modern education? This paper will compare and consider some of the diverse but not universally agreed definitions of these widely used terms. The language and literature classroom will be offered as an example in order to demonstrate ways of putting these approaches into practice. Finally the paper will close with a discussion of the application of critical and creative thinking in the Hong Kong context.