Teaching English Forum -Vol 42- ...

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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
I
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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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).
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1
•
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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-
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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.
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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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