Teaching English Forum -Vol 42- Issue 3- 2004.pdf

Introduction: A Roundup of Ideas

Max Koller

The photo of the bull rider on the cover, which illustrates the rugged nature of rodeo, brings to

mind a colloquial expression that is popular these days: Don’t try this at home . This phrase,

originally a disclaimer in television advertising, conveys that whatever this refers to is

dangerous or requires expert skills. I assume such a warning is not necessary here because I

doubt that any of our readers will go out and jump on a rampaging bull.

When you read the feature article in this issue, you’ll learn that the seven events that

constitute today’s rodeos originated in the everyday work of cowboys who herded cattle in the

early days of the American west. Those cowboys held competitions to see who was best at

such things as calf roping and bull riding. Eventually, those competitions evolved into the

professional sport of rodeo.

The evolution continues as a new species of the sport is emerging. An outfit called

Professional Bull Riders Inc., whose members perform only one event—bull riding—is

providing fierce competition for traditional rodeo, attracting some of the best rodeo riders,

acquiring big corporate sponsors, and securing widespread television coverage for its events.

Bull riding, known as the most dangerous eight seconds in sports (a rider must stay on the bull

for eight seconds or be disqualified), is what we like to call an extreme sport—one you don’t

try at home.

What you can try at home—your home in the classroom, that is—are the ideas and techniques

you’ll find in this issue, including suggestions for fostering critical thinking in your students,

enhancing extensive reading, and developing pragmatic competence. Two articles, one about

maintaining discipline in the classroom and one on teacher assessment, discuss topics that can

improve the classroom environment, and thus facilitate learning.

In this issue we also present the third essay in our series on American writers. Elmaz

Abinader’s “Just Off Main Street” illuminates how, as the child of immigrants, the author

sensed that her life was separated from those of her peers by a “magic door.” The lesson plans

that accompany the essay will help you explore Abinader’s ideas with your students.

As you can see, we’ve rounded up all kinds of articles for this issue. We hope you’ll enjoy

reading them.

Evrim Üstünlüo˘lu

T URKEY

Language

Teaching

Critical Thinking

and Self-Awareness

N RECENT YEARS LANGUAGE TEACHERS HAVE FOCUSED ON THE ROLE OF THE

learner as an active participant in the teaching-learning process. Focusing on the

learner is a natural outgrowth of a change in orientation from behaviorist to cog-

nitive theories of learning. That change has highlighted what the learner does

and how the learner processes information during the lesson rather than focus-

ing on what the teacher does.

The outgrowth of the cognitive approach has been perceived in language

teaching together with reflections about the relationship between thinking and

language. Teachers who want to promote thinking should try to observe how

students produce knowledge rather than how they merely reproduce knowledge.

Producing knowledge requires the use of a number of thinking skills such as ana-

lytical, lateral, problem solving, critical, creative, and reflective thinking (Rose

and Nicholl 1997).

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through

Although thinking skills can be learned by

practicing, like playing tennis and swimming,

they require more effort than many teachers

realize. To emphasize thinking skills, a teacher

must organize course objectives well and must

be aware of his or her own values, perceptions,

assumptions, and judgments as well as those

of the learners as these are closely related to

thinking (Heuer 1999).

Various definitions of critical thinking exist.

All include many of the same concepts. Scriven

and Paul (1996) define critical thinking as “the

intellectually disciplined process of actively and

skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing,

synthesizing, and evaluating information gath-

ered from, or generated by, observation, experi-

ence, reflection, reasoning, or communication,

as a guide to belief and action.”

This article covers the rationale for critical

thinking followed by sample activities for

developing thinking skills. Critical thinking is

one of the thinking skills that should be high-

lighted in designing and improving language

curriculum because the world we live in is get-

ting more complicated to understand, and

how we process information has become more

important than specific facts. Taking this idea

into consideration, we language teachers can

encourage our students to go beyond surface

meaning and to discover the deeper meaning

instead of merely using basic literacy skills

(Van Duzer and Florez 1999).

ence, irrational fears, acquired hostility, and

inflexible ideas into the classroom so their

learning is limited to the surface (Paul and

Elder 2002; Kurland 2000).

Language teachers can activate critical

thinking in the classroom by highlighting self-

awareness; that is, they can help the learners

have and show understanding of themselves

and their surroundings. By means of interac-

tive approaches and materials, teachers can

help students be aware of their perceptions,

assumptions, prejudices, and values and can

help students break old habits to construct a

new point of view. It will take effort, but stu-

dents will enjoy discovering themselves as they

learn a language.

Perceptions

We hear, see, taste, or feel stimuli by

means of our senses. This process occurs so

spontaneously that we tend to think of per-

ception as a passive process. However, percep-

tion is an active rather than a passive process.

It enables us to construct, interpret, and make

conclusions about information we receive,

rather than simply to record “reality.” Percep-

tion is a process of making inferences.

Through inferences we construct our own

version of reality. However, our version of

reality may be distorted by our past experi-

ences, education, cultural values, and role

requirements (Heuer 1999).

To help the learner become aware of his or

her own perceptions and how they may differ

from those of others, language teachers can

use optical illusions in class. Activity 1 will

teach students different ways of seeing and

help them realize that people can perceive the

same things in different ways.

Activity 1

Begin by showing the pictures (right) one

by one to your students and asking them what

they see. Most of them will say that they see a

picture of a woman (Picture A), some figures

(Picture B), and an old man on a boat (Picture

C). Be patient and wait for some students to

perceive the pictures in a different way (verti-

cally or upside down); give them time to dis-

cuss their perceptions with the other students.

After a while, ask students what else they per-

ceive. In all likelihood, some will say they see:

• The word Liar in Picture A (viewed diag-

onally).

A CTIVITY 1 • I LLUSTRATIONS

P ICTURE A

How critical thinking can be improved

in language classes

Critical thinking skills are not likely to

develop spontaneously. On the contrary, teach-

ers must take a directive role in initiating and

guiding critical thinking. Language classes are

particularly appropriate for teaching critical

thinking owing to the richness of material and

the interactive approaches used.

Of the many concepts related to acquisition

and improvement of critical thinking, self-

awareness is one of the most important.

Through critical thinking and self-awareness,

one can understand the relationship between

thoughts and emotions. Although it is assumed

that they are independent, the truth is that feel-

ings are based on some level of thought, and

thoughts generate from some level of feeling.

Emotions play an important part in learning

because learners may bring learned indiffer-

P ICTURE B

P ICTURE C

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• The word LIFE in Picture B (seen by

focusing on the white spaces between the

black spaces).

• A large bird with a man in its mouth in

Picture C (when looking at the picture

upside down).

This activity will help students appreciate

that images can be perceived differently, not

only in language class but in real life as well.

Students enjoy the lesson, and they get an

opportunity to discuss what they have seen, to

learn vocabulary, and to practice structures

such as present continuous tense (e.g., “What

is the man in the boat doing?”).

smiled at the little girl and rang the bell again.

Still, no one answered. He waited and rang the

bell a third time, and when there was still no

sign of anyone in the house, he said to the girl,

“I thought you said your mother was home.”

“She is,” the girl replied, “but I don’t live

here.” (Boostrom 1994, 201)

After reading the joke, ask your students

the following questions:

• What made the deliveryman assume that

the house belonged to the little girl?

• Would you make the same assumption if

you were that deliveryman?

• What would you do to ascertain that the

house is the girl’s house or that anyone is

at home?

• Have you made any wrong assumptions

lately? What were they? What was wrong

with your assumptions?

Discuss with your students how difficult it

is to avoid making assumptions, and how

important it is, when thinking critically, to

consider the assumptions we make. Only by

doing so can we determine if an idea makes

sense. Teachers can use the “AFAN” formula

(Rose and Nicholl 1997) to help students ana-

lyze their assumptions. AFAN stands for:

A=assumptions, F=For, A=Against, N=Now

what? Each of the letters raises certain ques-

tions:

• A (Assumptions): What have I assumed?

What have I taken for granted? Do I

need more information? What are the

facts?

• F (For): What is the evidence for my

opinion? Is it good evidence? Is it a fact

or belief? What are the reasons for my

belief?

• A (Against): What are the alternatives to

my point of view? Can I see this another

way? What if my starting assumption is

wrong?

• N (Now what?): This is a question posed

to lead to a better assessment of the argu-

ment, one that may produce a better

final decision.

The AFAN formula can be easily applied

to most assumptions. Try the AFAN questions

with the deliveryman joke above.

Assumptions

Assumptions are ideas that a speaker or a

writer takes for granted, like axioms in math-

ematics. Ideas that ought to be examined are

assumed to be true, so it is possible to build an

argument that seems completely logical. How-

ever, if an initial premise is false, the result will

be wrong. By focusing on critical thinking

skills, language teachers can help students

identify their assumptions, consider whether

those assumptions are justifiable, and under-

stand how they shape students’ point of view.

Since associating personal interest with collec-

tive interest (assuming that what is good for

you is good for everyone) is a common trend,

clarifying assumptions is one of the basic steps

of critical thinking (Heuer 1999).

There are many techniques for revealing

assumptions. One is to have students read a

story and then explain their assumptions and

give their rationale for those assumptions. The

teacher must be careful not to label responses

as right or wrong, or students will be reluctant

to speak. The following joke can help make

students aware of their assumptions.

A CTIVITY 2

One hot summer afternoon, a deliveryman

drove up to a house, got out of his truck, and

started up the walk when he noticed a little

girl sitting on the steps. “Is your mother

home?” he asked her. The little girl nodded

and said, “Yes.” So the deliveryman went back

to his truck, slid out a large carton containing

a mattress and box spring, and carried the

heavy carton up the steps to the front door.

Red-faced and sweating, he pushed the door-

bell and waited. No one came to the door. He

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