This is a summary of a webinar hosted by Cambridge English Teacher and presented by Herbert Puchta on October 10th, 2012.
The 'attention-grabbing' approach to teaching
Even very young children are able to think, attend and remember, but their thinking, attending and memory are very reactive. Children growing up today are subjected to sensory overload constantly. Television, for example, is fast-paced, loud, full of movement, and has colourful, constantly changing scenes. As a result, today's youngsters have very short attention spans.
'Reactive learners' need fast-paced, sensory bombardment to learn even very simple information. This leads to the teacher being an entertainer which is totally exhausting.
Learning as a 'self-directed activity'
Why teach thinking skills?
The importance of divergent thinking
Divergent thinking (as opposed to convergent thinking) is extremely important - students need to learn that there is not necessarily one right answer. You can teach this by asking questions like:
Write down as many different uses as you can think of for:
What does critical thinking involve?
Problem solving cycle
A typology of thinking skills areas to be taught with EFL for young learners
1. Where's Tom?
This is an example from Herbert Puchta and Marion William's book 'Teaching Young Learners to Think'.
It focuses on the 'exploring space' skill. To develop this skill, students need:
Draw a Venn diagram and ask the question:
What is the same and what is different between this pair of objects?
Examples: car and bicycle
tree and flower
chair and table
banana and pineapple
The focus here is obviously on the skill of making comparisons, the basic building block of decision making. This kind of activity can be introduced at beginner level. Simply asking the question, 'What colour's my jacket?', for example, activates language, but it doesn't require any thinking on the part of the respondent. As teachers, we need to encourage thinking.
3. Missing information
Give three texts - three party invitations, for example, - each one with a missing piece of information (time, place, date, etc.). Students have to work out what is missing rather than the more usual task of answering questions on what is there.
4. Listen and imagine
Tell students to close their eyes and then play them a piece of music. Then ask them to draw a picture inspired by the music or write down a list of words they would associate with it. They then have to explain their picture or choice of words to a partner or small group.
Here, we are encouraging creative thinking, which, as we have already heard, is an integral part of critical thinking.
5. Cause and effect
Give students a statement and ask them if there is a cause and effect relationship in it. For example,
Jane doesn't play any musical instruments. Therefore, she isn't a musician.
This kind of task is suitable for intermediate level students. They have to question whether or not there is enough information to establish a cause and effect relationship. If not, what other information is needed? The attention to detail required here is a great exercise for students.
To conclude:
Quoting Vygotsky's model:
Learning moves away from the goal of getting the answer correct to getting the answer correct because a specific process was used to get the answer.
Further information:
The 'attention-grabbing' approach to teaching
Even very young children are able to think, attend and remember, but their thinking, attending and memory are very reactive. Children growing up today are subjected to sensory overload constantly. Television, for example, is fast-paced, loud, full of movement, and has colourful, constantly changing scenes. As a result, today's youngsters have very short attention spans.
'Reactive learners' need fast-paced, sensory bombardment to learn even very simple information. This leads to the teacher being an entertainer which is totally exhausting.
- Children increasingly learn to direct their attention, memory and problem-solving skills on their own.
- Children gradually take more and more responsibility for their own learning.
- Children acquire the mental tools to help them think better.
- Tools of the mind (mental/cognitive tools) help to extend a child's cognitive capabilities.
- Tools of the mind reduce the workload for the teacher.
- Children need to face the challenges of a changing and unpredictable world.
- They need problem-solving and decision-making skills to meet unexpected problems and tackle them.
- School curricula tend to promote systematic, error-free learning - correct answers, assimilation of facts, teacher's assessment.
The importance of divergent thinking
Divergent thinking (as opposed to convergent thinking) is extremely important - students need to learn that there is not necessarily one right answer. You can teach this by asking questions like:
- a button
- a brick
- a blanket
What does critical thinking involve?
- Working out whether or not we believe what we see or hear.
- Finding out whether something is true.
- Arguing one's case.
- Identifying when we need more information.
- Selecting information for a specific purpose.
Problem solving cycle
- Gather and organise information
- Define the problem
- Generate approaches to solve the problem
- Make an action plan
- Monitor, check, evaluate
- Communicate solutions
- Transfer the problem solving skills learned to other problems
What thinking skills can we teach at the same time as we are teaching language?
A typology of thinking skills areas to be taught with EFL for young learners
- Making comparisons
- Categorising
- Sequencing
- Focusing attention
- Memorising
- Exploring space
- Exploring time
- Exploring numbers
- Creating associations
- Cause and effect
- Making decisions
- Solving problems
- Creative thinking
1. Where's Tom?
It focuses on the 'exploring space' skill. To develop this skill, students need:
- a reference system to understand and control the space they live in.
- a sense of position, distance, direction, proximity and dimensions.
- the ability to imagine a change in position. This is necessary for hypothetical thinking - the ability to imagine another viewpoint.
What is the same and what is different between this pair of objects?
Examples: car and bicycle
tree and flower
chair and table
banana and pineapple
The focus here is obviously on the skill of making comparisons, the basic building block of decision making. This kind of activity can be introduced at beginner level. Simply asking the question, 'What colour's my jacket?', for example, activates language, but it doesn't require any thinking on the part of the respondent. As teachers, we need to encourage thinking.
3. Missing information
Give three texts - three party invitations, for example, - each one with a missing piece of information (time, place, date, etc.). Students have to work out what is missing rather than the more usual task of answering questions on what is there.
4. Listen and imagine
Tell students to close their eyes and then play them a piece of music. Then ask them to draw a picture inspired by the music or write down a list of words they would associate with it. They then have to explain their picture or choice of words to a partner or small group.
Here, we are encouraging creative thinking, which, as we have already heard, is an integral part of critical thinking.
5. Cause and effect
Give students a statement and ask them if there is a cause and effect relationship in it. For example,
Jane doesn't play any musical instruments. Therefore, she isn't a musician.
This kind of task is suitable for intermediate level students. They have to question whether or not there is enough information to establish a cause and effect relationship. If not, what other information is needed? The attention to detail required here is a great exercise for students.
To conclude:
Quoting Vygotsky's model:
Learning moves away from the goal of getting the answer correct to getting the answer correct because a specific process was used to get the answer.
Further information:
- Follow @herbertpuchta on Twitter
- www.herbertpuchta.com
- facebook.com/herbertpuchta.elt
- Teaching Young Learners to Think
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