Методическое пособие «Основы технологии критического мышления на уроках английского языка»

Методическое пособие

«Основы технологии критического мышления

на уроках английского языка»

Basic Guide to Critical Thinking

Teach your child to think

Edward de Bono

Critical Thinking Techniques

Critical thinking is an important and vital topic in modern education. All educators are interested in teaching critical thinking to their students.

We should be well informed about the strategy of teaching critical thinking skills to prepare our pupils to succeed in the world.

                                        organize thoughts

Person who                                  ask appropriate questions

thinks critically                             gather relevant information

can                                               creatively sort through information

                                    come to reliable conclusions about the          

                                    world  and act successfully in the world

Children are not born with the power to think critically. So critical thinking is a learned ability that must be taught.

                                          a domain-general thinking skill

                                           very important in the knowledge

Critical thinking is                        crucial for self-education

                                           it enriches language and presentation skills

                                          it promotes creativity

Critical thinking can be taught during:

Auding is the basic type of critical thinking because it is an active process and pupils should take written notes while listening.

Pre-listening questions should be thoughtful and searching.

Active reading is primary. Everyone can write only as well as he/she reads.

Writing is the best way to teach critical thinking because it forces pupils to organize their thoughts and present their work.

Homework presents many opportunities to encourage critical thinking.

What is critical reading?

To non-critical readers, texts provide facts (what a text says).

To critical reader, any text provides how a text portrays the subject matter.

At school we learn what to think but not how to think.

Here’s a crash course how to think clearly, accurately and fairly.

Benefits of critical thinking.

We have too much information. Critical thinking helps you focus on what matters.

Three combinations of reading strategies:

ü what a text says (restatement);

ü what a text does (description);

ü what a text means (interpretation).

Critical Reading Strategies

1. Annotating .

2. Previewing is learning about a text before reading it. Pupils try to get a sense of what the text is about.

What can you learn from the headnotes?

3. Predicting.

Prediction means to make a guess about what happens next.

4. Contextualization

What have you known about the facts or events before?

5. Questioning is asking questions about the content:

ü teacher’s questions;

ü pupils’ questions for every paragraph or section.

Questions should focus on a main idea, not on details.

6. Reflecting is making marks in the margin, examining pupils’ personal responses.

7. Outlining is identifying the main ideas and restating them in your own words. It’s a close analysis of each paragraph.

8. Summarizing is a fоrm of a new text putting ideas together again in your own words.

9. Evaluating an argument.

10. Comparing and contrasting related reading is exploring likenesses and differences between texts to understand them better.

What is critical writing?

Critical writing is a vehicle through which students can readily express their critical thinking. To write better, you must learn to read better.

You cannot write without understanding how the language works to communicate ideas. Writing is a process of invention. Grammar, spelling punctuation must satisfy rules. Sentences must make sense.

Writing is a process of revision.

While writing, I should think about:

1. What I say (content).

2. How I say (language).

3. How ideas connect to one another (structure).

Group words to find the main idea. Use grammar structure and tense.

Punctuation. Is it necessary to use punctuation in a right way?

Woman, without her man, is nothing.

Woman! Without her, man is nothing.

Writing is one of  four communicative skills  which  involves three  other  skills  into the  teaching  process.  It  makes  children  grow  into  active  critical  participants  in  culture  and  society. It  gives  the  student  possibility  to  show  his  inner  world  and  develop  his  precious  ideas  more  effectively  than  in  oral  communication. Before  the  lesson  ends, ask  your  pupils to write  5-minute  papers  on  most  significant  things  they have learnt  in  class  today. You  will  get  immediate  feedback  about  what  the  pupils  are  learning  and  what  they  still  need  to  understand.       

It helps the pupils to discover what and how much they are learning.

It helps the teacher to discover how is he/she teaching.

5-minute papers improve pupils’ writing and critical thinking.

Written dialogues.

Give pupils written dialogues to analyze. In small groups pupils identify the different viewpoints of each participant in the dialogue.

Each group must decide which view is the most reasonable. After coming to a conclusion, each group acts out their dialogue.

Journaling.

Let your pupils write a page of anything in their journal (what they did the day before, their dreams, problems and their thoughts).

            Mind needs stimulation.

Case-study situations.

These questions can be answered individually or in small groups and then discussed in class. Use real-life questions. The question “Why” is an important one to ask when the pupils learn to think critically.

Thinking is not driven by answers but by questions. Why, Where, What and How type of question will make your pupils develop a number of critical thinking skills.

Don’t give pupils clear cut material. Give them conflicting information that they must think their way through.

If pupils do not know enough, they will not be able to perform the task well. How can I help encourage my pupils to speak English?

ü Give pupils more time to do the tasks.

ü Give the tasks according to their experience.

ü Provide pupils with task guidance (guiding questions, multiple choices).

ü Give pupils the tasks suitable to different levels.

ü Build up positive attitudes among pupils to feel free in speaking English.

ü Build a supportive learning environment.

Let your pupils check their answers with their peers before offering them to the whole class. It will make them confident in speaking English.

Be sensitive. Let your pupils choose who they are going to work with in pairs or groups.

Assigning Homework

Homework has substantive effects on pupils’ learning and presents many opportunities to encourage critical thinking.

§  Homework allows the pupils to revisit the lesson in their own time.

§  Homework should be balanced with the pupils’ needs, motivation and time.

Examples:

§  What did you do yesterday?

§  What didn’t you do yesterday?

§  Write a diary.

We shall have our next work in a week. Write what you did every day during the week.

§  Write a story about your weekend.

§  What would you like to know about your friend’s week days? Make up possible questions.

How to teach pupils critical thinking

Activity 1. Have a bag full of many words written on small pieces of paper. Close your eyes, pull out a word and tell what this word means.

List all associations with the word. How does it work? Because the brain is self-organizing system and very good at making connections.

Activity 2. Mind Maps are an effective method of note-taking and useful for the generation of ideas by association.

To make a mind map you should start from the main word in the centre of the page and work out other ideas in all directions, producing a growing and organized structure composed of key words.

Mind Maps help organize information. Use only key words: nouns, verbs.

Activity 3. Brainstorming is generating ideas in group situation.

Follow the rules for brainstorming:

ü Have a well-defined problem.

ü Have someone assigned to write down all the ideas according to the problem.

ü Have the right number of pupils in the group.

Every idea is accepted and recorded.

Activity 4. Problem Reversal is changing a positive statement into a negative one.

What is good? What is bad? What would you have to do anything better?

Activity 5. Ask Questions

Ask “Why” five times.

The Six Universal Questions

There are only six questions that one human asks another.

What? Where? When? How? Why? Who?

You should draw a mind map of the problem with these six words.

Teach your pupils ask “Thin” and “Thick” questions

Thin questions	Thick questions
Who..? What..? When..? Where..? Was it..? What was the name of..?	Why..? Explain why..? Why do you think that..? Was he right or wrong? What is the difference between..? If you were… would you..?

Activity 6. Story Boarding is taking your thoughts and thoughts of other and spreading them on a blackboard or a large sheet of paper when you solve a problem.

Everything should fit together.

Activity 7. Questions Game takes readers back into the several times.

Procedure:

ü Each pupil reads a short part of the text and asks  3 questions (10 min).

ü Pupils choose a partner, exchange questions, try to answer each other questions in writing (5 min).

ü Partners sit together to discuss answers. They form 3 other questions (10-15 min).

ü They exchange 3 questions with partners of another two-partners group.

Activity 8. Priority Ladder

Decide on your priorities among the following notions: sport, money, education, friends. Then compare your priorities with your partner in the form of a micro-dialogue.

Cover the following points:

ü your first/ second/ third/ fourth choice

ü your account for your choice

ü examples                    sport

                                         money

                                     education

                                  friends

Conversation Lessons with Stories, Vocabulary Practice, Questions and Activities

Suggestions for Using the Lessons

The Story

The teacher may choose to read the story about asking the pupils not to look at it or to read the story to themselves silently as quickly as possible.

Vocabulary Practice

The teacher may ask the pupils to answer the vocabulary questions when they finished reading it. The pupils should use the text in order to guess the meaning of each vocabulary item.

Questions for Discussion

The questions are posed under the text and stimulate class discussion. The teacher may ask several pupils to answer the same question for different opinions.

Activities

The teacher may ask the pupils to pair up and tell each other the story in their own words. He/she may ask one pupil to tell the whole story to the pupils in his/her own words. Before activities the teacher should ask the pupils to repeat the words from the text several times.

Miscellany

The teacher may use proverbs or quotes after the discussion. The teacher should use this statement as a topic for class discussion.

The Story

Once a soldier asked his officer for a day’s leave to attend his sister’s wedding. The officer asked him to wait outside the door for a few minutes while he considered the request. Then the officer called the soldier to come in and said, “You are a liar. I have just phoned your sister and she told me she is already married”. “Well, sir, you are even a big liar”, the soldier answered, “because I don’t even have a sister”.

Vocabulary Practice

Mark the best choice:

1.  “Leave” here means…

a.      going out from a place

b.     one part of a tree

c.      asking a person for some money

2. To “attend” means to…

a.      take care of

b.     be present at

c.      pay for

Questions for Discussion

1. Why did the soldier tell the officer a lie?

2. Why did the officer tell the soldier a lie?

3. What is funny about the story?

4. Can you remember such lies in your life?

Activities

1. Pronounce the following words several times:

Officer

Soldier

Attend

A liar

2. Now tell  your friends the story in your own words.

A Related Proverb

One foot cannot stand on two boats.

Kickstart your creativity!

We should be teaching pupils how to think. Instead, we are teaching them what to think. When we are faced with a problem, we must take action. People can think productively in a variety of ways.

Expend your abilities! Develop all of your potential!

Referenсes

1.     de  Bono, E.(2000).Teach yourself how to think. de  BonoWeb portal.

2.     Kurland D.J.(2000).What is critical reading.Web page.

3.     Davis G.(1992).Creativity is forever.Dubuque.

4.     Muehlhauser L.(2007).Techniques of critical thinking. lukeprog.com.

5.     Vangh Lewis.(2009).The power of critical thinking.Oxford University Press.

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Данное пособие разработано с целью ознакомить учителей с возможностями использования ТРКМ на уроках английского языка, ориентировать обучение учащихся на результат, формировать коммуникативную компетентность, развивать навыки вдумчивой работы с информацией, с текстом, что позволяет четко организовать учебный процесс. Особое внимание в своей работе я уделяю развитию критического мышления учащихся в процессе обучения английскому языку. Материал пособия позволит учителям английского языка развивать познавательный интерес и творческие способности учащихся, повысить эффективность урока английского языка, значительно увеличить время для речевой практики, в комплексе решать важнейшие образовательные и воспитательные задачи.