LESSONS FROM CRITICAL THINKING: HOW TO PROMOTE THINKING SKILLS IN EFL WRITING CLASSES

Autor(i)

  • Mojgan Rashtchi TEFL Department, Faculty of Foreign Languages, North Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Iran
  • Babak Khoshnevisan University of South Florida, USA

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.46827/ejfl.v5i1.3153

Ključne riječi:

critical thinking, EFL writing courses, reasoning skills, writing tasks

Sažetak

Critical thinking as an issue with on-going importance has an immense influence on modern education. However, it is not a natural disposition but is a potential that needs cultivation. Training individuals to become critical thinkers is not an easy task, but by adopting appropriate strategies and classroom practices, it is attainable. The present article aimed to show how English writing classes in EFL settings could facilitate the practice of critical thinking skills. This paper suggests that critical thinking can be implemented as a classroom practice in writing courses by using several tasks that integrate writing and thinking skills. The article starts with an introduction to the definitions of critical thinking. Then, it underlines the classroom procedures, which can be implemented by teachers. Following this, some sample tasks and writing topics are proposed to help teachers employ critical thinking practices in their classes.

 

Article visualizations:

Hit counter

Biografije autora

  • Mojgan Rashtchi, TEFL Department, Faculty of Foreign Languages, North Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Iran

    Mojgan Rashtchi is an associate professor of Applied Linguistics in the faculty of Foreign Languages of Islamic Azad University, North Tehran Branch. She has taught a variety of subjects related to English language teaching to students at different levels. She has published several articles and books and has participated in several local and international conferences. Her primary areas of interest include English language teaching methodology, theories of first and second language acquisition, teaching language skills, P4C, and research in education.

  • Babak Khoshnevisan, University of South Florida, USA

    Babak Khoshnevisan has a PhD in the Technology in Education and Second Language Acquisition (TESLA) Program from the University of South Florida (USF). He is a teacher educator of ESOL courses at USF. His research interests include teacher education, idiomaticity, augmented reality (AR), virtual reality, and computer-assisted language learning.

Reference

Auden, W. H. (1939). The unknown citizen. Retrieved from https://poets.org/poem/unknown-citizen

Beyer, B. K. (1988). Developing a thinking skills program. Allyn and Bacon.

Blake, W. (1963). To see the world in a grain of sand. Retrieved from https://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/blake/to_see_world.html

Bruner, J. (1985). Vygotsky: An historical and conceptual perspective. Culture, communication, and cognition: Vygotskian perspectives. Cambridge University Press.

Cam, P. (1995). Thinking together: Philosophical inquiry for the classroom. Hale & Ironmonger.

De Bono, E. (1985). The CoRT thinking program. In J.W. Segal, S.F. Chipman, & R. Glaser (Eds.), Thinking and learning skills: Relating instruction to research (Vol. 1, pp. 363-388). Lawrence Erlbaum.

Dewey, J. (1993). How we think: A restatement of the relation of reflective thinking to the educative process. Houghton Mifflin.

Ennis, R. H. (1993). Critical thinking assessment. Theory into Practice, 32 (3), 179-186. https://doi.org/10.1080/00405849309543594

Frost, R. (1916). The road not taken. Retrieved from https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44272/the-road-not-taken

Garmon, M. A. (2001). The benefits of dialogue journals: What prospective teachers say. Teacher Education Quarterly, 28(4), 37-50. Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org

Glaser, R. (1984). Education and thinking: The role of knowledge. American Psychologist, 39(2), 93–104. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.39.2.93

Hullfish, H. G., & Smith, P. G (1978). Reflective thinking: The method of education. Greenwood Press.

Keating, D. P. (1988). Adolescents’ ability to engage in critical thinking. National Center on Effective Secondary Schools. University of Wisconsin-Madison. Retrieved from https://www.semanticscholar.org

Kellog, R. T. (1994). The psychology of writing. Oxford University Press.

Kendall, J. S., & Marzano, R. J. (2000). Content knowledge: A compendium of standards and benchmarks for K-12 education (3rd Ed.). Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development; Aurora, Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning.

Lipman, M. (1978). Suki. Institute for the Advancement of Philosophy for Children.

Lipman, M. (2003). Thinking in education (2nd Ed.). Cambridge University Press.

Lipman, M., Sharp, A. M., & Oscanyan, F. S. (1980). Philosophy in the classroom (2nd Ed.). Temple University Press.

Marzano, R. J. (1992). A different kind of classroom. Teaching with dimensions of learning. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Marzano, R. J., & Pollock, J. E. (2001). Standards-based thinking and reasoning skills. In A. L. Costa (Ed.). Developing minds, a resource book for teaching thinking (pp.29-35). Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Murphy, B., & Hastings, A. (2006). The utter hopelessness of explicit grammar teaching. The International Journal of Foreign Language Teaching, 2 (2). 9-11. Retrieved from www.citeseerx.ist.psu.edu

Paul, R. W. (1993). What every person needs to survive a rapidly changing world. The Foundation for Critical Thinking.

Paul, R. W. (1995). The logic of creative and critical thinking. The Foundation for Critical Thinking.

Paul, R. W., & Elder, L. (2003). The thinker’s guide to how to write a paragraph. The Foundation for Critical Thinking.

Rashtchi, M. (2007). A pathway toward critical thinking through cooperative writing in an English college course in Iran. The Near and Middle Eastern Journal of Research in Education, 2(1), (1-11). https://doi.org/10.5339/nmejre.2007.2.1

Rashtchi, M. (2019). Scaffolding argumentative essay writing via reader-response approach: A case study. Asian-Pacific Journal of Second and Foreign Language Education, 4(12), 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40862-019-0078-2

Rashtchi, M., & Aghajanzadeh, M. (2008). Comparative critical reading strategy and writing achievement of Iranian EFL learners. Journal of English Language Pedagogy and Practice, 1(2), 117-130. http://jal.iaut.ac.ir

Rashtchi, M., & Khoshnevisan, B. (2009). Audiotaped dialogue journal: A technique to improve speaking skill of Iranian EFL learners. Journal of English Language Pedagogy and Practice, 1(3), 164-176. http://jal.iaut.ac.ir

Rashtchi, M., & Sadraeimanesh, F. (2011). Is debate a useful strategy in enhancing the reading comprehension and critical thinking of Iranian EFL learners? Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 1(4), 361-369. https://doi.org/10.4304/tpls.1.4.361-369

Rashtchi, M., Nourozi Khiabani, M., & Roumiani, N. (2012). The effect of listening to audiotaped journals on Iranian EFL learners’ grammar knowledge. Advances in Asian Social Sciences, 4 (1), 764-768. www.worldsciencepublisher.org

Rashtchi, M., & Pourmand, S. (2014). Controlled extensive reading and vocabulary knowledge: Let’s move towards autonomous learning in EFL contexts. International Journal of English and Education, 3(2), 132-146. http://ijee.org/

Rashtchi, M., & Mohammadi, M. A. (2017). Teaching lexical bundles to improve academic writing via tasks: Does the type of input matter? Electronic Journal of Foreign Language Teaching, 14(2), 201-219. https://e-flt.nus.edu.sg/

Rashtchi, M., Porkar, R., & Ghazi Mir Saeed, F. (2019). Product-based, process-based, and genre-based instructions in expository writing: Focusing on EFL learners’ performance and strategy use. European Journal of Education Studies, 6(6), 115-136. http://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3427842

Resnick, L. B. (1987). Education and learning to think. National Academy Press.

Raths, L. B., Jonas, A., Rothstein, A., & Wassermann, S. (1967). Teaching for thinking, theory, and application. Charles E. Merrill.

Schafersman, S. D. (1991). An introduction to critical thinking. Retrieved from http://www.freeinquiry.com/critical-thinking.html

Sheikhy Behdani, R., & Rashtchi, M. (2019). Process writing and enhancement of critical thinking ability: Is writing a vehicle or an ingredient of critical thinking? Iranian Journal of Applied Language Studies, 11(1), 181-200. http://dx.doi.org/10.22111/ijals.2019.4937

Silverman, J. & Smith, S. (2003). Critical thinking source: Answers to frequently asked questions about critical thinking. Retrieved from http://www.umn.edu/ohr/teachlearn/critical1.html

Tashlin, F. (1946). The bear that wasn’t. E.P. Dutton.

Topping, K. (2001). Thinking reading writing. Continuum.

Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Harvard University Press.

Wade, C. (1995). Using writing to develop and assess critical thinking. Teaching of Psychology, 22, 24–28. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15328023top2201_8

Wallace, C. (2003). Critical reading in language education. Palgrave Macmillan.

Preuzimanja

Objavljeno

2020-06-27

Broj časopisa

Svezak 5 Br. 1 (2020)

Rubrika

Articles

Licenca

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

 

  1. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.

 

  1. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.

 

  1. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).