ENGLISH LEARNING AND CRITICAL THINKING

There are our impressions of what is critical thinking and why is so important for us, not only as a future teachers but also as student in continous trainning.

Yvonne:

"Imagine if we were not able to think for ourselves or some regulations would not allow us. This may sound absurd but it is much like what is happening with the education of our nation’s children. We are creating a society in which thinking is not welcomed. Take for instance television, most of the programs that are broadcasted, and you will realize the standards that rule our today’s society and the truth is that this is not making us progress. Second, how can we expect our students to be critical if we do not teach them how to achieve it? Most of the times, our education does not allow our students to be creative and just tell them what and how to do things. We are like robots."

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Cristina:

"Being that we live in a world that is continuously evolving; there is new progress on every field of knowledge and we have more and more information and new and faster tools to get it everyday. Why wouldn’t we want our students to know how to think critically? How to be inquisitive and reasonable in the selection of criteria and information? When we think about these questions, it is important to state that the present generation of students will become the society of the future; so, why wouldn’t we give them the necessary tools to live and succeed on the future world?"

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Antonio:

"Students are supposed to learn (sometimes memorize) a table of contents in order to pass one exam after the other. Let’s be honest: who in this country (apart from those who know the answer as specialists) remembers the name of the Spanish kings and queens since 1492? Or an extremely ‘useful’ quadratic equation? What about the different rhetorical figures we can draw out from a poem?"

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Juan Carlos:

"Of course, the contents and subjects are important, but if professors don’t teach with the purpose of create critical thinkers ready to question the world and assemble their own opinion, empty students will be created. Another brick in the wall of our useless occidental education system.”

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Andrea:

"As a conclusion, I would like to speak about some benefits of critical thinking. First, students become more independent and self-sufficient . Secondly, it shows them how to filter out relevant and irrelevant information. Thirdly, it teaches not to judge other perspectives. It enables to see beyond. This is crucial to work in teams and become a good leader. Eventually, it makes them better communicators because they know how to support their theory or point of view with proper arguments."

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L5 - ACTIVITY 5.3

L5 - Activity 5.3

1- Describe an example of exercise, or unit, from a book, dealing with intercultural competence.

English File: Pre-intermediate Student’s Book, is one of the examples that we can use with our students in order to apply intercultural competence. 

In this textbook we can find some examples of interesting exercises that go beyond of the classic “fill the gaps” activities, i.e, we can find in page 14 a text called A moment in history about the election of Barack Obama as the first black president of the United States of America, using this social event as the conductive thread of a reading activity.

But we can find other kinds of activities, not only texts. In this same coursebook there is a very interesting listening activity about the life of those teenagers who are wheelchair users, and more activities related with other intercultural topics.  

2- In your opinion, has the subject been dealt with appropriately? Explain why it has or why it has not.
A moment in history, is a very interesting text about how the afroamerican breed has changed on the USA society, a topic that goes beyonf the curriculum. The text includes the grammar and the vocabulary of the unit, but is also a great opportunity of bring the intercultural aspects of our society to our classrooms as something real, meaningful and worthy for the student.

Is an example of how to EFL exercises can also help the students on his/her way to become in critical thinkers.

3- How would present/include it in your teaching?
 The reading of the text A moment in history could be a very useful tool to work the Curriculum and behind it. But it will be a more complete activity if it would include a chance to make the students build their own knowledge, using the Constructivism theories for that, it would be interesting add some some pre-reading activities and a debate as a post-reading activity.