Fostering critical thinking in the classroom

Christina Cavage
A group of young adults sat at a table in a library looking up towards a older woman

Critical thinking is a term often thrown around the teacher’s lounge. You often hear, “Of course, teaching critical thinking is essential.” However, in that same space, we may also hear the question, “But how?”

Teaching students to think critically involves helping them to develop a critical mindset. What exactly does that mean, and how can we do that?

What does it mean to think critically?

Critical thinking is a complex process that involves students reflecting, analyzing and evaluating ideas. Building a community of critical thinkers in our classrooms involves going beyond the cognitive domains and building the affective domains.

The cognitive domain concerns subject knowledge and intellectual skills, whereas the affective domain involves emotional engagement with an idea or learning material.

This deliberate teaching of critical thinking needs to be part of our teaching toolkit. We need to develop a mindset around it in and out of our classrooms.

How can teachers develop a critical-thinking mindset?

Consider all the questions we pose to students during our classes. Do we expect a yes or no answer, or have we established a classroom environment where students offer considered reasons for their responses?

By following some guiding principles, we can get into the practice of naturally expecting deeper answers:

  1. Students need to engage in critical thinking tasks/activities at all levels.
  2. Teachers need to provide space/time in the classroom to build critical thinking learning opportunities.
  3. Practicing critical thinking must be incorporated throughout the course, increasing complexity as students improve their critical thinking ability.
  4. Students must be given opportunities to practice transferring critical thinking skills to other contexts.

Activities to foster critical thinking in the classroom

Activity/Strategy #1: Categorizing

Provide a set of vocabulary terms or grammatical structures on the board (or pictures for true beginners). Ask your students to gather in pairs or small groups and have them categorize the list. Ask them to be creative and see how diverse the categories can be.

Example:

Desk, computer, pencil, stove, dishes, forks, novel, cookbook, sink, shelf

  • Made from trees: pencil, novel, cookbook, desk.
  • Made from metal: fork, stove, sink, etc.

Activity/Strategy #2: What’s the problem?

Provide students with a short reading or listening and have your students define a problem they read or hear.

Tomas ran up the steps into Building A. The door was closed, but he opened it up. He was very late. He took his seat, feeling out of breath.

  • Determine why Tomas was late.
  • Underline verbs in the past tense.
  • Create a beginning or ending to the story.

Activity/Strategy #3: Circles of possibility

Present a problem or situation. Consider the problem presented in strategy #2 above: Ask the students to evaluate the situation from Tomas’ point of view, then, from the teacher’s point of view, and then from his classmate’s point of view.

This activity generates many conversations, and even more critical thinking than you can imagine!

Activity/Strategy #4: Draw connections

Provide students with a list of topics or themes they have studied or are interested in. Place one in the center, and ask them to draw connections between each one.

Afterward, they should explain their ideas. For example:

“Energy and environment are affected by sports. Most sports do not harm the environment, but if you think about auto racing, it uses a lot of fuel. It can negatively impact the environment.”

Activity/Strategy #5: What’s the rule?

Play students an audio clip or provide them with a reading text. Draw students’ attention to a particular grammatical structure and ask them to deduce the rules.

Activity/Strategy #5: Establishing context

Show your class an image and put your students in small groups. Give each group a task. For example:

The Jamestown settlement in the United States
“A famous historic site is the Jamestown Settlement in Virginia. People from England were the first people to live in Jamestown. When did they arrive? They arrived in 1607. They built homes and other buildings. They looked for gold, silver and other materials. They sent the materials back to England. It was a hard life. Jamestown wasn’t a good place to settle. The winters were cold, and the settlers didn’t know how to protect themselves. After some time, they traded with the Native Americans, including tools for food. This helped the hungry settlers. Did many people die? Yes, many of the first settlers died. Later, more settlers arrived in Jamestown. It wasn’t easy, but in the end the settlement grew.”

Ask questions like this:

  • If this were in a movie, what would the movie be about?
  • If this were an advertisement, what would it be advertising?
  • If this were a book, what would the book be about?

There are many other wonderful strategies that can help build a classroom of critical thinkers. Getting your students accustomed to these types of tasks can increase their linguistic and affective competencies and critical thinking. In addition to these on-the-spot activities, consider building in project-based learning.

How can you incorporate project-based learning into your classroom?

Project-based learning often begins with a challenge or problem. Students explore and find answers over an extended period of time. These projects focus on building 21st Century Skills: Communication, Creativity, Collaboration, and Critical Thinking.

They also represent what students are likely to encounter when they leave our English language classes.

An example project

Consider this project: Our cafeteria is outdated. It does not allow for food variety, or for guests to sit in groups of their desired size and activity level. Survey students who use the cafeteria. Follow up the survey with interviews. Determine how your group can reimagine the cafeteria. Prepare a proposal. Present your proposal.

You can imagine the amount of language students will use working on this project, while, at the same time, building a critical mindset.

Teaching critical thinking is all about building activities and strategies that become part of your teaching toolkit, and your students’ regular approach to problem-solving.

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  • Children in a classroom with their hands up

    8 first lesson problems for young learners

    提交者 Joanna Wiseman

    The first class with a new group of young learners can be a nerve-wracking experience for teachers old and new. Many of us spend the night before thinking about how to make a positive start to the year, with a mixture of nerves, excitement, and a desire to get started. However, sometimes things don’t always go as expected, and it is important to set a few ground rules in those early lessons to ensure a positive classroom experience for all, throughout the academic year.

    Let’s look at a few common problems that can come up, and how best to deal with them at the start of the school year.

    1. Students are not ready to start the class

    How the first few minutes of the class are spent can greatly influence how the lesson goes. Students can be slow to get out their equipment and this can cause a lot of time wasting. To discourage this, start lessons with a timed challenge.

    1. Tell students what you want them to do when they come into class, e.g. sit down, take out their books and pencil cases, sit quietly ready for the lesson to start.
    2. Time how long it takes for everyone to do this and make a note. Each day do the same.
    3. Challenge students to do this faster every day. You could provide a goal and offer a prize at the end of the trimester if they reach it, e.g. be ready in less than a minute every day.

    2. Students speak their first language (L1) in class

    One of primary teachers' most common classroom management issues is getting them to speak English. However, young learners may need to speak their mother tongue occasionally, and a complete ban on L1 is often not the best solution. But how can we encourage students to use English wherever possible?

    Tell students they have to ask permission to speak in L1, if they really need to.

    • 3 word rule — tell students that they can use a maximum of three words in L1 if they don’t know them in English.
    • Write ENGLISH on the board in large letters. Each time someone speaks in L1, erase a letter. Tell students each letter represents time (e.g. 1 minute) to play a game or do another fun activity at the end of the lesson. If the whole word remains they can choose a game.

    3. Students don’t get on with each other

    It is only natural that students will want to sit with their friends, but it is important that students learn to work with different people. Most students will react reasonably if asked to work with someone new, but occasionally conflicts can arise. To help avoid uncomfortable situations, do team building activities, such as those below, at the beginning of the school year, and do them again whenever you feel that they would be beneficial:

    • Give students an icebreaker activity such as 'find a friend bingo' to help students find out more about each other.
    • Help students learn more about each other by finding out what they have in common.
    • Balloon race. Have two or more teams with an equal number of students stand in lines. Give each team a balloon to pass to the next student without using their hands. The first team to pass the balloon to the end of the line wins.
    • Team letter/word building. Call out a letter of the alphabet and have pairs of students form it with their bodies, lying on the floor. When students can do this easily, call out short words, e.g. cat, and have the pairs join up (e.g. three pairs = group of six) and form the letters to make the word.

    4. Students don’t know what to do

    When the instructions are given in English, there will inevitably be a few students who don’t understand what they have to do. It is essential to give clear, concise instructions and to model the activity before you ask students to start. To check students know what to do and clarify any problems:

    • Have one or more students demonstrate using an example.
    • Have one student explain the task in L1.
    • Monitor the task closely in the first few minutes and check individual students are on the right track.

    5. A student refuses to participate/do the task

    This is a frequent problem that can have many different causes. In the first few lessons, this may simply be shyness, but it is important to identify the cause early to devise an effective strategy. A few other causes might include:

    • Lack of language required to respond or do the task. Provide differentiation tasks or scaffolding to help students with a lower level complete the task or have them respond in a non-oral way.
    • Low self-confidence in their ability to speak English. Again, differentiation and scaffolding can help here. Have students work in small groups or pairs first, before being asked to speak in front of the whole class.
    • Lack of interest or engagement in the topic. If students aren’t interested, they won’t have anything to say. Adapt the topic or task, or just move on.
    • External issues e.g. a bad day, a fight with a friend, physical problems (tiredness/hunger/thirst). Talk to the student privately to find out if they are experiencing any problems. Allow them to 'pass' on a task if necessary, and give them something less challenging to do.

    It is important not to force students to do something they don’t want to do, as this will cause a negative atmosphere and can affect the whole class. Ultimately, if a student skips one or two tasks, it won’t affect their achievement in the long run.

    6. Students ask for repeated restroom/water breaks

    It only takes one student to ask to go to the restroom before the whole class suddenly needs to go! This can cause disruption and stops the flow of the lesson. To avoid this, make sure you have rules in place concerning restroom breaks:

    • Make sure students know to go to the restroom before the lesson.
    • Have students bring in their own water bottles. You can provide a space for them to keep their bottles (label them with student names) in the classroom and have students fill them daily at the drinking fountain or faucet.
    • Find out if anyone has any special requirements that may require going to the restroom.
    • Provide 'brain breaks' at strategic points in the lesson when you see students becoming restless.

    7. Students don’t have the required materials

    • Provide parents with a list of materials students will need on the first day.
    • If special materials are required in a lesson, give students a note to take home or post a message on the school platform several days before.
    • Don’t blame the student - whether they have a good reason or not for turning up to class empty-handed, making a child feel guilty will not help.
    • Write a note for parents explaining why bringing materials to class is important.

    8. Students are not listening/talking

    Getting their attention can be challenging if you have a boisterous class. Set up a signal you will use when you want them to pay attention to you. When they hear or see the signal, students should stop what they are doing and look at you. Some common signals are:

    • Raising your hand?- When students see you raise your hand, they should raise their hands and stop talking. Wait until everyone is sitting in silence with their hands raised. This works well with older children and teenagers.
    • Call and response attention-getters - These are short phrases that prompt students to respond in a certain way, for example: Teacher: "1 2 3, eyes on me!"?Students: "1 2 3, eyes on you!". Introduce a new attention-getter every few weeks to keep it fun. You can even have your students think up their own phrases to use.
    • Countdowns -?Tell students what you want them to do and count backwards from ten to zero, e.g. "When I get to zero, I need you all to be quiet and look at me. 10, 9, 8 …"
    • Keep your voice low and speak calmly -?This will encourage students to stop talking and bring down excitement levels.
    • A short song or clapping rhythm -?With younger children, it is effective to use music or songs for transitions between lesson stages so they know what to do at each stage. For primary-aged children, clap out a rhythm and have them repeat it. Start with a simple rhythm, then gradually make it longer, faster, or more complex.