Olena Lisnychenko
Vinnytsia Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky State Pedagogical University
Scientific Superviser: A.S. Krykun
CRITICAL THINKING STRATEGIES IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES SPEAKING SKILLS
The analysis of the essence of critical thinking indicated that it is intellectually engaged, skillful and responsible thinking which requires the application of assumptions, knowledge, competence and the ability to challenge one‘s own thinking. Researchers point out the interdependence of learners’ foreign language speaking skills and critical thinking; they state that application of critical thinking development strategies, and particularly, using Bloom and Anderson’s taxonomies to design lessons in the classroom, will facilitate the development of learners’ speaking skills.
Keywords: critical thinking, analysis, evaluation, speaking.
The development of learners’ analytical, critical thinking skills hasn’t been traditionally paid much attention to by school teachers. As a result, nowadays learners lack the ability to analyze and solve problems and are not ready to face the challenges of the current time.
The analysis of the recent studies on the development of critical thinking and foreign language speaking skills indicates that the researchers (Ramezani et al., 2016) trace interrelation and interdependence of learners’ critical thinking and foreign language speaking skills. The researchers support Vygotsky (1962), who noted the interdependence of thought and speech and highlighted that thinking motivates speaking and vice versa.
Scientists (Ramezani et al., 2016) on the basis of their study found out that students who demonstrate good critical thinking skills are more successful in their speaking performances; and students who are not critical thinkers perform poorly on their speaking ability.
Developing learners’ thinking skills requires teachers’ understanding the nature of critical thinking phenomenon. According to researchers (Ramezani et al., 2016)., critical thinking is the ability to analyze and evaluate information. Critical thinking is also regarded as intellectually engaged, skillful, and responsible thinking that facilitates good judgment because it requires the application of assumptions, knowledge and competence and the ability to challenge one‘s own thinking. Unlike other forms of thinking, critical thinking requires the use of self-correction and monitoring to judge the reasonableness of thinking as well as reflexivity. When using critical thinking, individuals pause and reflect on the quality of that thinking. A critical thinker is not only evaluating, analyzing and interpreting the information, he or she is also analyzing inferences and assumptions made regarding that information. Critical thinkers use these skills appropriately and usually without prompting. They are generally predisposed to think critically, to evaluate the outcome of their thought processes. Critical thinkers raise vital questions and problems, formulate them clearly, gather and assess relevant information, use abstracts ideas, think open-mindedly, and communicate effectively with others. Therefore, the researchers (Yusuf & Adeoye, 2012) state that to think critically, there must be a certain amount of self-awareness and other characteristics present to enable a person to explain the analysis and interpretation and to evaluate any inferences made.
The researchers (Rao, 2018; Yusuf & Adeoye, 2012) are sure that the recognition of the importance of the development learners’ critical thinking skills and application of critical thinking development strategies in the classroom will facilitate the development of learners’ speaking skills. At the same time, scholars admit that not only speaking abilities are connected with critical thinking; other language skills are also related to thinking. In fact, the hidden basis of all cognitive activities is thinking.
Thinking is a natural process, but if it is not developed, it is often biased, distorted and partial. So, the necessity arises to use purposely some strategies to develop learners’ thinking skills.
Researchers (Yusuf & Adeoye, 2012) suggest using a five-step model to develop students’ critical thinking: determine learning objectives; questioning techniques, allow practice, review refine and improve teaching, provide feedback.
As a guide for teachers to design lessons in such a way so that it could help learners to think critically Bloom’s taxonomy is used. The taxonomy designed by B. Bloom and his colleagues provides a way to describe levels of thinking. The taxonomy is essentially a hierarchy, with knowledge as the first level and evaluation as the sixth level. Bloom’s Taxonomy has had tremendous influence in assisting teachers to design instructional activities that cover the six levels of the hierarchy.
The educational objectives are structured in a hierarchical order. At the lowest level students are required to know, memorize, repeat and list information. At the higher levels, students are required to judge, criticize, resolve, invent, and make recommendations. Each of the levels builds in complexity from the previous level (Tabrisi & Redeout, 2017).
Bloom’s Taxonomy was revised (Anderson, et al. (2001). – an ordering of cognitive skills. The major differences lie in the more useful and comprehensive additions of how the taxonomy intersects and acts upon different types and levels of knowledge — factual, conceptual, procedural and meta-cognitive.
The researchers (Anderson, et al. (2001) suggested developing thinking skills from lower order to higher order in such sequence:
- Remembering: to analyze, compare, contrast, inquire, investigate, classify, organize, examine.
- Understanding: to discuss, describe, explain, match, find, reword, review, translate, express, report.
- Applying: to display, simulate, apply, demonstrate, practice, operate, compute, present.
- Analyzing: to analyze, compare, contrast, inquire, investigate, classify, organize, examine.
- Evaluating: to judge, evaluate, advise, conclude, consider, determine, recommend.
- Creating: to compose, invent, develop, construct, create, hypothesize, predict, speculate, role-play.
The verbs are identified above to clarify the point in understanding the function of the hierarchical way of thinking involving students in this process. When the teacher uses these verbs in the structure of a question regarding the content area it automatically involves the student thinking at that level in which the verb word appears.
Practice shows that critical thinkers are open-minded and communicate effectively with others. The development of critical thinking skills among students is of vital importance. The application of Bloom’s and Anderson’s taxonomies can help teachers to design the lessons suitable for gradual development learners’ critical thinking and speaking skills.
REFERENCES
- Anderson, L. W., Krathwohl, D.R., et al. (2001). A taxonomy for learning, teaching and assessing: A revision of Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives. New York: Longman.
- Rao, R.S. (2018). Developing speaking skills in ESL or EFL settings. International Journal of English Language, literature and translation studies.
- Ramezani, R., Larsari E. E., & Kiasi M. A. (2016). The Relationship between Critical Thinking and EFL Learners’ Speaking Ability. English Language Teaching.
- Tabrisi, S. & Redeout, G. (2017). Active Learning: Using Bloom’s Taxonomy to Support Critical Pedagogy. International Journal for Cross-Disciplinary Subjects in Education (IJCDSE).
- Yusuf, F.A & Adeoye, E. A. (2012). Developing Critical Thinking and Communication Skills in Students: Implications for Practice in Education. An International Multidisciplinary Journal.