DEVELOPING CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS IN ELT

DEVELOPING CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS IN ELT

K.Yesmambetova

Kyzylorda, School-Lyceum No.3

Аннотация

Автор мақалада қазіргі заман талабына сай оқытуда қолданылатын сыни тұрғыдан ойлау модулының қыр-сырын жан-жақты талдаған. Сыни тұрғыдан ойлаудың шет тілін үйренудегі маңызы, оқущылардың ағылшын тілін үйренуде оның тиімді жақтарына талдау жасаған. Автор жоғары сынып оқушыларымен сабақта сыни тұрғыдан ойлау әдістерін қолдана отырып өзекті мәселелерді қалай шешу керектігі жөнінде өз іс-тәжірибесімен бөліседі.

Аннотация

В своей статье автор описывает особенности критического мышления в современном обучении. Также он сделал анализы о важности и применения критического мышления учениками в изучении английского языка. Автор также поделился опытом работы, как использовать методы и подходы критического мышления учениками в старших классах.

“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger,

more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius –

and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction.”

Albert Einstein

This paper discusses the general concept of critical thinking, its importance for second or foreign language learners and analyses how effective it is in improving the language proficiency of the students.

I teach English at senior classes and I think that critical thinking is very important for any students at school. The role of the teacher is to develop students’ language skills and promote their critical thinking skills too. Who is a critical thinker? I found the following definition of critical thinking at http://www.jamesmw.com/thoughts.htm  "A critical thinker is someone who explores and considers as many possibilities as he can. His thinking is not bound by rules or doctrines, and he tries his best not to use emotions to justify his ideas. A critical thinker knows that he often has to follow rules, but he knows how to think outside of them. He does not take anything at face value because he knows that many commonly accepted things and ideas might, in fact, be wrong. Throughout history, there have been many intellectuals who have been critical thinkers. Some are scientists who discover things not from formal experiments or painstaking research but from thinking in a new and unique way. And the critical thinker himself always keeps in mind that his own ideas might be wrong." 

Critical thinking remains of paramount importance to teach students the basics of critical thinking, which is integrate activities that enhance critical thinking in learners. Personally I try to do my best to get the students think critically. I ask them questions with multiple answers. Using questions and answers I always notice that different ideas come\spread in the classroom. They express different opinions, learn to listen to each other, give reasons for what they say. While discussing any topic they feel highly excited. There are some students who no longer feel shy is taking part in the discussion. When I see their faces I feel great to be a monitor. I use different activities that encourage my students think critically in the classroom. I love when my students speak or debate according to the given topic. In that case students are more active and they become real learners.

Definition of critical thinking

Critical thinking is a life skill which helps people throughout their entire life. It is not a matter of gathering information. A person with a good memory and who knows a lot of facts is not necessarily good at critical thinking. A critical thinker is able to deduce consequences from what he knows, and he knows how to make use of information to solve problems, and to seek relevant sources of information to inform him.

Critical thinking should not be confused with being argumentative or being critical of other people. Although critical thinking skills can be used in exposing fallacies and bad reasoning, critical thinking can also play an important role in cooperative reasoning and constructive tasks. Critical thinking can help us acquire knowledge, improve our theories, and strengthen arguments. We can use critical thinking to enhance work processes and improve social institutions.

Components of critical thinking

It is true that it takes a long time to reflect on the good principles of reasoning and make a conscious effort to internalize them. The mastery of critical thinking is similar to the mastery of many other skills. There are three important components: theory, practice, and attitude.

1. Theory

If we want to think correctly, we need to follow the correct rules of reasoning. Knowledge of theory includes knowledge of these rules. These are the basic principles of critical thinking, such as the laws of logic, and the methods of scientific reasoning, etc. Also, it would be useful to know something about what not to do if we want to reason correctly. This means we should have some basic knowledge of the mistakes that people make. First, this requires some knowledge of typical fallacies. Second, psychologists have discovered persistent biases and limitations in human reasoning. An awareness of these empirical findings will alert us to potential problems.

2. Practice

However, merely knowing the principles that distinguish good and bad reasoning is not enough. We might study in the classroom about how to swim, and learn about the basic theory, such as the fact that one should not breathe under water. But unless we can apply such theoretical knowledge through constant practice, we might not actually be able to swim.

Similarly, to be good at critical thinking skills it is necessary to internalize the theoretical principles so that we can actually apply them in daily life. There are at least two ways one is to do lots of good-quality exercises. Exercises include not just exercises in classrooms and tutorials. They also include exercises in the form of discussion and debates with other people in our daily life. The other method is to think more deeply about the principles that we have acquired. In the human mind, memory and understanding are acquired through making connections between ideas.

3. Attitudes

Good critical thinking skills require not just knowledge and practice. Persistent practice can bring about improvements only if one has the right kind of motivation and attitude. The following attitudes are not uncommon, but they will not help you improve your thinking:

I prefer being given the correct answers rather than figuring them out myself.

I don't usually review the mistakes I have made.

I don't like to be criticized.

Steps of critical thinking

Critical thinking involves the use of a group of interconnected skills to analyze, creatively integrate, and evaluate what you read and hear. To become a critical thinker you must be able to decide whether an author’s opinions are true or false, whether he or she has adequately defended those ideas, whether certain recommendations are practical, as well as whether particular solutions will be effective.

Step 1: Remembering. Our students have to be able to recall verbs, nouns, adjectives, adverbs, etc. You already know how to get them to retain new vocabulary. For large classes you can use games.

Step 2: Understanding. Once students are armed with this vocabulary, the grammatical stage can begin where they can ask and answer questions in set formats and also describe things and situations. You can expand this step as much as you feel is necessary.

Step 3: Applying. Give students some new vocabulary and have them create their own descriptions and questions & answers of the subject. If they can do this, you're on the road to success. Don't worry if a lot of them falter at first. This is a big unsupported step but they can become accustomed to it given time. Brighter students will quickly realize the fun/value of free thinking and communication, i.e. ‘Mr. Geoff smells!', ‘Mr. Geoff likes Barbie!' ‘Do you like Mr. Geoff?'... ‘No, I don't!'.

Step 4: Analyzing. As an example, give students the ability to be able to describe and compare certain subjects. This can be anything, animals, food, music, household items, clothes, cartoons, etc. Then have them describe the subject, mentally and in writing. Why and how are things different? What does what? Why does something do something? Etc.

Step 5: Evaluating. Have students swap their Step 4 masterpieces with other students. Do they agree with each other? Give them the tools to be able to say why or why not. Keep this step lighthearted and don't turn it into a competition or a test. You should support and encourage weaker students across steps 4 and 5.

Step 6: Creating. Here you can have students collaborate in pairs or groups (make sure that skill levels are balanced though and don't let students self-select). Have them produce another piece of work similar to Step 4 and then have them swap this amongst other pairs or groups. When universal agreement has been reached without correction or criticism you've pretty much hit the nail on the head.

Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action. It is based on universal intellectual values: clarity, accuracy, precision, consistency, relevance, sound evidence, good reasons, depth, and fairness.

Application of critical thinking in EFL classrooms

The application of critical thinking in EFL or ESL classrooms is quite possible, because the strategies such as Think Pair Share (TPS), quick write, know-want to know-learned (KWL), pen in the middle, jigsaw, predictions by terms, debate etc. prescribed by critical thinking are almost familiar to the teachers of English. Similarly, the ABC (Anticipation, Building knowledge, and Consolidation) framework followed in teaching following critical thinking is very much similar to the PWP (Pre-, While and Post) or BWA (Before, While and After) framework used in teaching reading and listening.

In the anticipation stage, teachers set contexts for carrying out the main tasks using learners’ experience or previous knowledge so that learners can easily understand the main texts. Similarly, in building knowledge stage, learners receive new information, or ideas, and consolidation stage learners consolidate what they have learnt in a lesson going beyond the texts so that their learning can be permanent or automatic, because the learners are provided with the opportunities to assimilate the new knowledge with their real life experiences. Thus, it seems that ABC and PWP or BWA frameworks are different terminologically only. However, it is not true. There are certain differences between these frameworks. The PWP or BWA framework is generally used for teaching receptive skills-listening and reading, whereas the ABC framework is applicable to any kind of teaching items or subjects. The striking difference between them is that, in the former, the teachers are much concerned on how they can include the activities as per the six levels of cognitive domain given by Bloom (1956), but in the latter teachers focus on only how they could help learners develop their language proficiency.

While we are teaching English, we teach different kinds of texts such as essays, poems, stories, memoirs, biographies, dramas, novels, etc. In order to teach these discourses, we can very wisely utilize critical thinking strategies, which can help us shift our activities from teacher centered to student centered. These strategies can help us dissect texts into various pieces and analyze each piece with some criteria or standards. If we apply ABC framework with suitable strategies, we are sure to ‘improve today and create a better tomorrow’ Chapman (2007). It is because teachers will not only help students develop their abilities to communicate effectively, but also the abilities to make appropriate decisions taking wider perspectives of their social and cultural lives into their account.

The above discussion implies the fact that we can apply critical thinking strategies in EFL or ESL classes successfully. The objectives of English curricula should not be circumscribed to linguistic factors alone. They should include the art of critical thinking. It is because, in order to be proficient in a language, learners need to use creative and critical thinking through the target language.

Challenges

In course of implementation, few challenges can easily be envisioned, which need to be faced by all teachers of English collaboratively. Most of the students focus on linguistic factors; rather than higher level of thinking. Thus, the development of critical thinking in language classroom seems to be a by-product of teaching English. To some extent, it seems to be true as well, because relatively a large number of students struggle for the improvement of linguistic abilities in English. Thus, for those students whose English proficiency is not fairly good, developing critical thinking in them seems to be a far-reaching goal. My own experience in ESL classrooms shows that students are engaged in higher level of thinking if they are provided with opportunities to use their native language in the discussions of different kinds of texts selected for them. In other words, many students have good ideas, but due to the lack of good command over English, they lag far behind.

Another challenge is that most of our teaching learning activities are guided by testing. To be specific, teachers in Kazakhstan tend to teach what are likely to be asked in the examinations; rather than what are important for learners to learn. Most of the examinations at schools, colleges and universities contain test papers that are limited to knowledge and comprehension levels. If an examiner happens to construct papers including the questions which require students to use their higher level of thinking, the examinees tend to claim that the questions are out of syllabi, which results into re-administration of the examination.

Courses to be taught and learnt, on the other hand, are highly challenging both in terms of length and contents. Teachers hardly ever finish the courses just by doing building knowledge stage only, let alone anticipation and consolidation. Moreover, some teachers are likely to show their reluctance to change their stereotypical teaching techniques. Critical thinking emphasizes that learners should learn to analyze the same texts or situations through different perspectives. Thus, the teachers who follow critical thinking strategy are sure to go beyond the texts spending much time on the same lesson. So the implementation of critical thinking strategies will require comparatively more time than in the ways the teachers tend to teach.

All new things in Kazakhstan are introduced following top down modality of implementation. Teachers in the classrooms can adopt the innovative ideas and strategies in the classrooms, but they may not be supported by the personnel in high ranks or positions. The examiners are also not very much well-informed in the use of critical thinking in setting question papers that can check the different levels of critical thinking. If there are incompatibilities in teaching and testing, it can exacerbate the result of our academic institutions.

Possible Solutions

Both the teachers and students should be crystal clear about the fact that language is not used in vacuum; neither is it used without contents. In order to develop language proficiency, we need subject matters to be discussed or studied or taught by using a target language. So both knowledge and language get developed simultaneously. Surely, the critical thinking strategies if applied properly will stimulate learners to develop higher levels of thinking and make them feel like expressing, sharing, doubting, debating, discussing, etc. At the same time, when they feel the need of expressing their ideas, they automatically acquire their target language i.e. English in the context of Kazakhstan. Undoubtedly, in the initial days, learners can be confused and will even think that they are not learning, nor will they think that their teacher is teaching, but their perseverance to try a new way of learning will certainly count in the long run. It is because almost all the strategies to be used in critical thinking enhance learner-centeredness.

Syllabus designers, textbook writers, examiners certainly play significant roles in deciding what instructional techniques and evaluation schemes should be followed in a particular program. They should know the fact that critical thinking is an important way of imparting education to the students. These three key stakeholders should collaborate and take initiatives to make textbooks, exam papers and teaching learning activities critical thinking friendly.

Conclusion

In conclusion, critical thinking is one of the most thought provoking methods of teaching, which can be implemented in any discipline. From the above discussion, it can be discerned that this methodology can be applied in teaching English as a foreign language, regardless of their English level. The implementation of critical thinking can help learners bring about positive changes in the ways they think and expand the horizons of their knowledge. Therefore, if it is implanted in ESL classrooms, the learners will not only build up communicative competence in English, but also intellectual traits.

References:

http://www.criticalthinking.org

http://www.sasked.gov.sk.ca

http://socyberty.com

ww2.odu.edu/.../Bloom/blooms_taxonomy.htm

chapmanresearch.mcgill.ca/publications.html‎

http://www.jamesmw.com/thoughts.htm