Developments in Critical Thinking in My Class: Part 1
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I have been really enjoying teaching the group of students I have this semester. They are motivated and energetic, and I rarely have to pull teeth to get the students participating in speaking activities (with the exception of a couple of isolated incidents).
As such, I've been gradually introducing critical thinking elements into classroom activities. At this point, I'm defining critical thinking as the questioning of one's assumptions in order to evaluate perspectives and worldviews from a broader perspective. However, I would say that as the semester has gone on, I've only just edged into the first part of that definition: the questioning of one's own assumptions. I wouldn't say most of the activities I've introduced have been focused on critical thinking, and I'm not teaching it explicitly. I do think many of my fluency activities have subtlely introduced basic elements of critical thinking: asking for opinions, analysis, and evaluation. Furthermore, critical thinking is not part of the curriculum I'm required to use, so I've been trying to sneak it where I can.
I'm assuming that most, if not all, the students have not had much or any experience with critical thinking, so this is the path I decided to take. To illustrate this, when explaining the importance of critical thinking in US education to one of my students he replied, "Japanese people don't ask 'why?'". I am again faced with the predicament of wondering
This semester started with a number of topics and concepts that are already familiar to the students (and it's continuing to seem like a review for many of my students), so I started the inclusion of critical thinking by simply asking "Why?", and I hope to move into more structured activities where the students begin to question their own assumptions.
Here is a breakdown of what I thought were critical thinking activities for the first part of the semester:
Lesson 2 - Wh-Word Questions: I told the students that "Why?" is my favorite question in the English language. I heard many of the students ask each other "Why?" during speaking activities, but most responses I overheard were rather short (see Likes and Dislikes).
Lesson 3 - Like and Dislikes: When discussing likes and dislikes, I asked the students "Why" they like or dislike certain things. Many of them were sort of dumbstruck by the question (their response was often, "Why?! WHY?!"). However, most of the students were eventually able to give a short, simple response like "I think he/she/it is cute" or "I think it's delicious/fun/interesting".
Lesson 4/5 - Frequency Adverbs: In groups, I asked the students to conduct a group survey. They had to come up with their own topic and questions using the question forms we had learned in class ("Do you...?", "How often do you...?", and "How many times a _______ do you...?"). After they had time to choose a topic, write the questions, give the survey to other students, and compare their answers within their groups, I asked the groups to consider their results: what was surprising or interesting about your answers? What do your answers tell you about the lifestyle of the other students in the classroom? Did you get a variety of answers to a particular question, or did you get the same answer to a particular question? Why might that be?
These were not easy questions to answer, and to be honest, I did not give a lot of structure or scaffolding for asking such difficult questions, but I did want to see what they came up. From what I overheard, most groups were just comparing and contrasting their answers. However, I did hear a couple of students give more in-depth analyses. I wish I would have taken note of some of the specific things those students had said.
Lesson 6 - Past Tense: Introduction: This lesson didn't really have any critical thinking aspect to it apart from some "Why?" questions.
Lesson 7 - Directions: Students had to create their own map of the university and develop a tour for it. There was not a lot of critical thinking that went into this activity. However, students were asked to explain WHY they chose the path that they did for their tour plan. In practice, this didn't actually happen 😜
Lesson 8 - Locations and Recommendations: For this lesson, pairs of students were assigned famous cities. They had to research (in English) to find a famous landmark in the city, explain why it is famous, find a hotel, and explain how to get to the landmark from the hotel. This was partially to prepare them for the end of the semester group project where they have to create a unique tour plan for a prefecture in Japan. Ideally, they should have written an explanation for why the landmark was famous in their own words, but in practice, many just copied from websites.
Lesson 10 - Past Tense: Telling Stories: The fluency activity asked students to recount a story to their group about their high school graduation day and about a time when they lost something valuable. There was not a lot of critical thinking in this fluency activity, but students
Lesson 11 - Past Tense: Negative Sentences: The fluency part of this lesson didn't really develop critical thinking skills so much as they developed creative skills. However, students were asked ridiculous and not-so-ridiculous questions ("Did your parents go to karaoke last night" or "Was English your favorite subject in high school?"), and they had to justify why the situation didn't occur or why they answered no as their partner asked them "Why didn't..." or "Why wasn't/weren't..." questions. This continued into the fluency activity as students wrote their one questions and asked "Why?" to garner reasons from their partners.
Lesson 12 - Presentation Practice: This wasn't a standard lesson. However, the students were asked to practice and evaluate each other's presentations, but not at any particular level of depth - just at the level of tips and advice. In Japanese culture, people are especially reticent to give direct negative feedback, even if it is constructive and would be beneficial for the person who it's directed at, but I did hear some students give pointers to each other here and there
As such, I've been gradually introducing critical thinking elements into classroom activities. At this point, I'm defining critical thinking as the questioning of one's assumptions in order to evaluate perspectives and worldviews from a broader perspective. However, I would say that as the semester has gone on, I've only just edged into the first part of that definition: the questioning of one's own assumptions. I wouldn't say most of the activities I've introduced have been focused on critical thinking, and I'm not teaching it explicitly. I do think many of my fluency activities have subtlely introduced basic elements of critical thinking: asking for opinions, analysis, and evaluation. Furthermore, critical thinking is not part of the curriculum I'm required to use, so I've been trying to sneak it where I can.
I'm assuming that most, if not all, the students have not had much or any experience with critical thinking, so this is the path I decided to take. To illustrate this, when explaining the importance of critical thinking in US education to one of my students he replied, "Japanese people don't ask 'why?'". I am again faced with the predicament of wondering
This semester started with a number of topics and concepts that are already familiar to the students (and it's continuing to seem like a review for many of my students), so I started the inclusion of critical thinking by simply asking "Why?", and I hope to move into more structured activities where the students begin to question their own assumptions.
Here is a breakdown of what I thought were critical thinking activities for the first part of the semester:
Lesson 2 - Wh-Word Questions: I told the students that "Why?" is my favorite question in the English language. I heard many of the students ask each other "Why?" during speaking activities, but most responses I overheard were rather short (see Likes and Dislikes).
Lesson 3 - Like and Dislikes: When discussing likes and dislikes, I asked the students "Why" they like or dislike certain things. Many of them were sort of dumbstruck by the question (their response was often, "Why?! WHY?!"). However, most of the students were eventually able to give a short, simple response like "I think he/she/it is cute" or "I think it's delicious/fun/interesting".
Lesson 4/5 - Frequency Adverbs: In groups, I asked the students to conduct a group survey. They had to come up with their own topic and questions using the question forms we had learned in class ("Do you...?", "How often do you...?", and "How many times a _______ do you...?"). After they had time to choose a topic, write the questions, give the survey to other students, and compare their answers within their groups, I asked the groups to consider their results: what was surprising or interesting about your answers? What do your answers tell you about the lifestyle of the other students in the classroom? Did you get a variety of answers to a particular question, or did you get the same answer to a particular question? Why might that be?
These were not easy questions to answer, and to be honest, I did not give a lot of structure or scaffolding for asking such difficult questions, but I did want to see what they came up. From what I overheard, most groups were just comparing and contrasting their answers. However, I did hear a couple of students give more in-depth analyses. I wish I would have taken note of some of the specific things those students had said.
Lesson 6 - Past Tense: Introduction: This lesson didn't really have any critical thinking aspect to it apart from some "Why?" questions.
Lesson 7 - Directions: Students had to create their own map of the university and develop a tour for it. There was not a lot of critical thinking that went into this activity. However, students were asked to explain WHY they chose the path that they did for their tour plan. In practice, this didn't actually happen 😜
Lesson 8 - Locations and Recommendations: For this lesson, pairs of students were assigned famous cities. They had to research (in English) to find a famous landmark in the city, explain why it is famous, find a hotel, and explain how to get to the landmark from the hotel. This was partially to prepare them for the end of the semester group project where they have to create a unique tour plan for a prefecture in Japan. Ideally, they should have written an explanation for why the landmark was famous in their own words, but in practice, many just copied from websites.
Lesson 10 - Past Tense: Telling Stories: The fluency activity asked students to recount a story to their group about their high school graduation day and about a time when they lost something valuable. There was not a lot of critical thinking in this fluency activity, but students
Lesson 11 - Past Tense: Negative Sentences: The fluency part of this lesson didn't really develop critical thinking skills so much as they developed creative skills. However, students were asked ridiculous and not-so-ridiculous questions ("Did your parents go to karaoke last night" or "Was English your favorite subject in high school?"), and they had to justify why the situation didn't occur or why they answered no as their partner asked them "Why didn't..." or "Why wasn't/weren't..." questions. This continued into the fluency activity as students wrote their one questions and asked "Why?" to garner reasons from their partners.
Lesson 12 - Presentation Practice: This wasn't a standard lesson. However, the students were asked to practice and evaluate each other's presentations, but not at any particular level of depth - just at the level of tips and advice. In Japanese culture, people are especially reticent to give direct negative feedback, even if it is constructive and would be beneficial for the person who it's directed at, but I did hear some students give pointers to each other here and there
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