CRITICAL THINKINBG ACTIVITIES THAT ARE CURRENTLY
PRACTICED IN EFL CLASSES AT METU NCC
Middle East Technical University
Northern Cyprus Campus
EFL 311
Evren Özdemir
Submitted to: Assist. Prof. Dr. Nurdan Gürbüz
January, 10, 2013
ABSTRACT
The aim of
this study is to find out what kind of critical thinking activities that are
currently practices at METU NCC. In order to collect the required data for the
study, questionnaires and interview were used as main data collection tools in
the study. There were 11 participants in the study and while 3 of them took
part in questionnaire, 7 of them participated in interviews. In addition, 7 of
the participants were women and 4 of them were men. By interviewing and giving
questionnaire to the participants, the data was collected and the collected
data which are currently used critical thinking activities in EFL classes at
METU NCC according to the explanations of the participants was categorized
under some categories, but the focus of this study which are critical thinking
activities were classified under the categories of Meaningful, Communicative
and Mechanical activities; however, there isn’t any activity that fit the
category of mechanical activities, so the activities that are currently applied
and thought as critical thinking activities by the participants were put under
categories of Communicative and Meaningful activities. At the end of the study,
it was found that the teacher in EFL classes at METU NCC don’t use critical
thinking activities like Project Work,
Dialogue Journal, Reading Logs that were given in the part of review of
literature because of the fact that the background and lower levels of the
students are not suitable to use such critical thinking activities. On the
other hand, it was seen that the teachers use more communicative and meaningful
activities in EFL classroom. After the detailed analysis of communicative
activities like group work, pair work etc and meaningful activities as problem
solving task, hypothetical questions, it was found that the activities that the
participants use carry the characteristics of critical thinking activities that
were given both in introduction and review of literature parts; therefore, it
is thought that these activities with their characteristics can be called as
critical thinking activities. Moreover, in the study, it was found that while 4
of the participants say that they don’t use critical thinking activities, two
of them use activities in the categories of communicative and meaningful
activities that carry the characteristics of critical thinking activities.
INTRODUCTION
Since a long time, how to think
efficiently and see the World differently has become an attractive issue for
people. This attractiveness has oriented people to think critically. The
Socratic principle which is ‘’the unexamined life is not worth living (Elder,
2007)’’has become a starting point for people who think critically. In
connection with thinking critically, the term critical thinking has attracted the attention of many educators
in recent years and these educators tried to define what ‘’critical thinking’’
is. With regard to
John Dewey[C1] (1933,
p. 118), critical thinking is ’’ active, persistent and careful consideration
of a belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds which
support it and the further conclusions to which it ends’’ and also according to
Michael Scriven & Richard Paul (1987),
critical thinking is cognitively
structured process of dynamically and effectively perceiving,
understanding, visualizing mentally, analyzing, synthesizing and interpreting
the information which is gained from ‘’ observation, experience, reflection,
reasoning or communication’’ as a way to reach a belief and action. Due to its
positive and significant effect on development of thinking ability, the
application of the critical thinking in classroom activities attracts the
attention of the educators.
Depending on critical
thinking, critical thinking activities that provide the chance of meaningful
practice and using existing knowledge,
the students’ involvement in the activities both emotionally and cognitively,
the use of the language apprehensively and productively, opportunity of taking
feedback for the students. (Gaskaree, Mashhady, Dousti, 2010, pp.
38-39). A critical thinking activity has some procedures. At the beginning, a
problem that attracts the attention of the students is determined and discussed
and then the reasons of the problem are analyzed and the possible solutions are
explored. During these processes, the students have the opportunity of
practicing and applying activities (Richards and Schmidt, 2002, p 420-421 as
cited in Gaskaree, Mashhady, Dousti, 2010, p. 40). Also, while these processes
are applied, open-ended questions about the problem are asked to the students
and they study on the problem by negotiating the meaning (Gaskaree, Mashhady,
Dousti, 2010). As a result of the problem posing and problem solving process,
the students become autonomous learners and realize the potential of their
intellectual capacity(Gaskaree, Mashhady, Dousti, 2010). In addition, when
language learners use the critical thinking activities by applying these
processes in the language learning process, they can have the chance of the
integration of their thinking and language skills (Gaskaree, Mashhady, Dousti,
2010).
By
relating ‘’critical thinking’’ and critical thinking activities, the aim of
this paper is to examine the critical thinking activities that are currently
used in METU NCC. At the end of this study, what kind of critical thinking
activities for teaching critical thinking skills and the activities currently
practiced in EFL classes in METU NCC will be learned and it is also thought
that this research can be an example for subsequent research about the practice
of critical thinking activities for teaching Critical Thinking skills in METU
NCC.
Research Question
In this study, quantitative data collection method is used and in the
analysis of the data, the descriptive way is used. Throughout the study, the
following research question will be the focus of the study.
Question:
What are the
critical thinking activities that are currently used in EFL classes in METU NCC?
REVIEW OF LITERATURE
Critical thinking activities
have been in use for a long time, but at the beginning of the 20th
century, the number of researches about critical thinking has substantially
increased. Some of these activities are examined in this study are Project
Work, Dialogue Journal, Reading Logs, Structured Conversational Dialogues,
using Portfolio, writing activities (Completing incomplete jokes, Completing an
incomplete passage, ‘’Recycling’’ Writing and Printed characters- based Writing), critical thinking skills with
content-based EFL instruction, critical thinking activities (Promoting
Interacting Working Groups, Developing Elements of Critical thinking, Improving
Elements of language skills) for dealing with unrelated evidence for the claim
in EAP context in PCU. The descriptions of these activities are given below in
a regular order in the studies and the articles.
The first critical
thinking activity is Project Work. According to Stoller (1997), the project
work has the role of providing meaningful interaction with language and
content, creating more active atmosphere for learning and collaboration and
enhancing learners’ level of thinking skills with the integration with the
content-based instruction in English Language classrooms. With regard to
Stoller (1997), Project work is cooperative, student centered, encouraging and
based on content learning and also it promotes authentic interaction with the
skills. Stoller (1997) proposed 10 step sequences of activities for developing
a project work in a language classroom. The sequence is to agree on a theme for
the project, determine the final outcome, structure the project, prepare
students for the language demands of step VII, compile and analyze information,
prepare students for the demands of step
IX, present final product, evaluate the project’’(Stoller, 1997). When this
sequence is applied in a contend-based language classroom, more attractive and
collaborative classroom environment can be created. The other critical thinking
activity which provides collaboration as Project work will be explained in the
following paragraph.
The other activity which
provides more attractive and collaborative communication for the development of
students’ language and literacy skills is Dialogue Journal. With regard to
Peyton (2000), it is an interactive writing between a teacher and students as a
conversation. It helps the students to have different kinds of communication
ways and to develop their language and literacy knowledge. In his study,
teachers behave as a ‘’evaluator’’ respond to the student’s questions, comments
and presents a new topic, correct students’ mistakes about their journals by
writing back to the students as in a face to face conversation. In his study,
Peyton(2000) proposed that Dialogue journals provide ‘’Extended contact with
learners, Management of classes with
learners of varying
language, ability, and interest levels, Assessment of student’s need and
progress and Facilitator of Language Learning’’. As dialogue journals, the
latter critical thinking activity positively contributes to the students’
communication skills.
Another critical thinking activity is
Reading Log that provides collaborative interaction and contributes to the
developments of the students’ communication skills is Reading Log. Carlisle
(2000) defines reading log as ’’ the activity of student written reading logs
as a practical application of reader-response theory in EFL literature
teaching’’. In the reading log, the students write the record of their
reactions, questions and ideas about the reading text and when the reading text
are collected, the students learn the ideas of the other students and then the
teacher gives feedback(Carlisle, 2000). Moreover, reading logs are expressive
and collaborative activity which encourages the students to think and use
language fluently and helps them to develop their language and writing skills.
Also, reading log helps the students to detect and reconstruct their secondary
world (Carlisle, 2000). According to
Tolkein (1997:132)(as cited in Carlisle, 2000, p. 13) secondary world is a
writer’s creation which is opposite to the real world the students interact with four processes
which are ‘’Anticipating/retrospecting, picturing, interacting and evaluating’’
(Benton and Fox, 1985:2-18, as cited in Carlisle, 2000, p.12) in their secondary
world At the end of his reading log
study, Anthony Carlisle (2000) said that‘’ writing reading logs helped the
students to get more out of the book’’. Reading logs are beneficial for the
development of the students’ language use and the thinking ability and also
when the students need to use both their language and thinking skills together.
By using the abilities that are gained from Reading Logs, the students can
communicate effectively. In the following critical thinking activity, the use
of language and thinking skill is necessary for the students to communicate
effectively.
The use of language and thinking skills
are the important to communicate effectively, so there is a critical thinking
activity which is Structured Dialogue Journals. Zainuddin and Moore(2003) defined
the structured controversial dialogue as ‘’ an adaptation of the constructive
controversy’’. They explained that Structured Controversial Dialogues are
applied in cooperative learning environment and in the application of the
activity, an issue is discussed in small groups by the students (Zainuddin and
Moore, 2003). When the students examine one side of the issue, they examine the
other side of the same issue. Moreover, Zainuddin and Moore (2003) stated that
students construct complex ideas by using simplified language, so the students
can easily comprehend and interpret the complex ideas and knowledge. In
addition, Structured Controversial Dialogues help learners to be active
learners, to understand and evaluate different perspective and to have
systematic reasoning and critical thinking skills (Zainuddin&Moore,
2003).In addition to benefits of Structured Controversial Dialogue on the
learners, the learners need to increase their understanding, critical thinking
skills and systematic reasoning about
the language, so by using Literacy Portfolio, they can develop these
characteristics in the language (especially in writing)
Next critical thinking activity is
Literacy Portfolio. According to Yang (2003),’’Portfolios are collections of
students’ work selected by the students to represent their learning
experiences’’. Portfolios involve students’ collections of samples from their
second language use so as to present other students and teachers (Yang, 2003).
Over the period of time, students’ portfolios are controlled instead of
evaluating at final submission (Yang, 2003).According to Yang (2003) Portfolios
have two functions. They show the progress of the students and provide the
chance of self-evaluation and so forming their language development in language
learning process, but this development especially happen in the writing skills (Yang, 2003, as cited in Gaskaree,
Mashhady, Dousti, 2010, p. 42).Yang (2003)
conducted a study about Portfolios which is based Learning Strategy-Based
instruction. A sequence whose steps are ‘’Diagnosis, Preparation/Awareness,
Raising, Instruction, Evaluation’’ were used in the study while using learning
strategy-based instruction in a freshman English course. It was found at the at
end of the study that portfolio are helpful for students to increase their
awareness about learning strategies, ease their learning, process and develop
their self-directed learning (Yang, 2003).While Literacy Portfolio help the
learners to enhance their awareness on language and their ways of learning
about the language (especially in writing), there are some critical thinking
activities such as ‘’Completing
Incomplete Jokes, Completing an Incomplete Passage, “Recycling” Writing, and
Printed-characters-based Writing’’ help the learners to have team voice( not as individual voice in
Literacy Portfolio) and develop their writing skills.
Four critical thinking activities (‘’Completing Incomplete Jokes, Completing an Incomplete Passage,
“Recycling” Writing, and Printed-characters-based Writing’’) were examined in a
study by Wang C., Wu, Fang, Wang J.
(2005). The aim of their study was to explore if teachers who participated
agree that the four critical and instructional activities in writing workshop
effective in English writing context. At the end of the study, it was seen that
the teacher respondents saw that the four critical thinking and instructional
activities are effective and the demonstrator was successful in writing
workshop (Wang C., Wu, Y., Fang, Y.,
Wang J., 2005). Also, the teacher participants’ critical thinking and
writing skills were seen in teamwork by using their existing knowledge and
experiences and then this leads to form a cooperative environment and have a
team voice (Wang C., Wu, Y., Fang, Y.,
Wang J., 2005). Moreover, these activities increase the awareness about
encouraging students’ English writing ability through critical thinking
activities (Wang C., Wu, Y., Fang, Y.,
Wang J., 2005). The weakness of the study were not being able to reduce
the time of the activities for implementing the instructional goals and not
making more than four activities for studying more deeply and academically (Wang C., Wu, Y., Fang, Y., Wang J., 2005).In
addition to the benefits of some critical thinking activities for writing
skills and language skills, some critical thinking activities as Concept Mapping contribute to understand
and setting connections between different ideas and provide the development of
reading skill.
The other
critical thinking activity is Concept mapping. According to Khaidadady and
Ghanizadeh (201, p, 48)’’ Concept maps are graphical representations of
knowledge. By forming connections between among thoughts on a visual map, concept
maps help the learners to understand the connections between ideas’’.
Khanidadady and Ghanizadeh(2011) conducted a study and in the study, they
explored the effect of concept mapping. Concept mapping has a positive and
significant influence on the learners’ critical thinking and encouraged them to
use their critical thinking abilities. Moreover, these results agree with the
idea of Wheeler and Collins (2003) (as cited in Khaidadady and Ghanizadeh,
(2011) that concept mapping is effectual in helping nursing students improve
critical thinking skills. In addition, by depending on the results, Khaidadady
and Ghanizadeh (2011) stated that finding leads to the conclusion that concept
mapping encourages EFL students’ use of critical thinking skill in reading classes.
Different from the critical thinking activities above, there are also some
critical thinking activities which are based on content or a problem.
Meei-Ling Liaw (2007)
investigated the effectiveness of encouraging learners’ critical thinking skills
on EFL skills with a content-based approach. She conducted a study to set
connection between theories and instructional practices by using design and
application of a content-based junior high school EFL syllabus (Liaw, 2007).
The results of the content-based instruction for developing critical thinking
skills positively contributed to the development of the participants’ English
language and thinking skills. On the other hand, there were two limitations in
the application of content-based approach in junior high school EFL syllabus.
The numbers of participant who participate in the study were not enough and
also there were not a control group who can control whether the findings are
owing to the instruction (Liaw, 2007).In addition to content-based approach in
language learning, there is also activities which are based on a problem.
In order to deal with problems about the
students’ use of unrelated evidence for supporting their claims in PCU (Petro
Christian University), Tedjaatmadja(2009) argues that critical thinking and
language skills should be encouraged to be used in academic assignment and to
deal with the problems in daily life by students. In her article, Tedjaatmadja
(2009) designs several critical thinking activities to incorporate critical
thinking units in EFL classes. The first activity is ‘’Promoting Interactive
Working Groups’’ (Tedjaatmadja, 2009). According to Tedjaatmadja (2009),
students’ critical thinking skill and language can be developed through
interaction with the other students. In order to achieve this, by working in
groups, the students’ reflection on their writing and presentation can be
speeded up and so critical thinking can be stimulated (Tedjaatmadja , 2009).
Therefore, the students’ development in their works can be enhanced
(Tedjaatmadja, 2009).The second activity was ‘’ Developing Elements of Critical
reading’’. How we read will identify how we write, so our critical thinking
will determine how we write critically (Tedjaatmadja, 2009). Tejaatmadja(2009)
designed several steps for this activity and in the steps, handling cognitive a
components of critical thinking and improving of the clarity of expressing the
critical thinking are the focus of the steps. The third activity is ‘’improving
elements of language skills’’. With regard to Hedge (2000) and Stapleton (2002)
(as cited in Tedjaatmadja, 2009), a language is the way of transferring the
writers’ ideas, so if good argument is not stated clearly, they will be
inefficient. Also, Ferris (2002:38) (as cited in Tedjaatmadja, 2009) claims
that the teachers are responsible for helping the students to develop their
linguistic skills. Depending on these ideas about language, the teacher has a
crucial role for what the students can do to success the maximum possible accuracy
and clarity in language (Tedjaatmadja, 2009). As a result, in order to
incorporate thinking units and to deal with problems about the students’
supporting their claims in EFL classes, the critical thinking activities which
are ‘’Promoting Interactive Working Groups, Developing Elements of Critical
reading, Improving elements of language skills’’ can be used to help students
to handle their problems about their claims by encouraging them to participate
in collaborative and interactive group, to express their ideas clearly as much
as possible in writing with the help of reading and express themselves
verbally and clearly with the encouragement of the teachers in the classroom environment(Tedjaatmadja
, 2009).
To sum up,
critical thinking activities can be very helpful for EFL student at many
aspects. During these activities, the students can find attractive,
collaborative and active atmosphere for learning of the language. In this
learning environment, EFL students can be more active and self-directed in the
application of the activities. As a result of these characteristics, the
students can learn the language more meaningfully and communicatively in a
collaborative environment and have a team-voice. In addition to this, during
these activities, because of the increasing awareness of the learners in the
language and the usage of it interactively, the students can develop their
reading and writing skills during the application of these activities.
METHODOLOGY
In order to find what kinds of critical thinking activities are
applied in EFL classes, qualitative data collection method will be used in this
study. Questionnaires and Interviews are used as the main data collection tools
to collect data in this study and descriptive way will be used in the analysis
of the data.
Data Collection
Tools
In the study, questionnaires and interviews are used as main data
collection tools. Moreover, in order to collect data in interview, a mobile
phone is used as recorder. The questions that were used in the interview are
the same with the questions that were used in the questionnaire. The reason why
the questions in both questionnaire and interview are the same is that all the
questions are suitable for both questionnaire and interview and the questions
are clear and they also necessitates the participants to tell what kind of
critical thinking activities they use in their classrooms. Because of these
reasons, changing the questions wasn’t thought and it was thought that these
questions are clear enough to reach the aim of this study. All of the questions
are open-ended. The first three questions in the questionnaire and interview
are asked to learn what kind of language teaching philosophy, instructional
activities and processes into the application of the activities the teachers
use. The rest of the questions except the last one were prepared to find out
what the participants know about critical thinking activities, whether they use
them in their classes, whether there are benefits of using critical thinking
activities for the language and thinking skills of the students in case of
using critical thinking activities in their classes. The last question which
is’’ What kind of activities would you use in your language classroom ‘’ lead
to some hesitation on the participant due to the question’s extension an
open-endedness; however, many of the participants didn’t hesitate too much for
answering the questions and some of them also gave more clear answers than it
was expected . In addition to these questions, during the interviews , extra
questions were asked to the participants to reach more accurate knowledge about
the critical thinking activities , but in the questionnaire, extra questions
couldn’t be asked to the participants because questionnaire depends on writing,
not verbal communication and also additional questions were attempted to ask,
but due to busyness ,workload of the participants and other reasons as
overlapping of class hours of the interviewee and interviewer, the additional
questions weren’t be able to be asked to the participants. In addition, a paper
on which the questions were written was given in the interviews and the same
paper was given the participants that attended to questionnaire and on the
paper, the name and age of participant and the level of the participants’
students were requested to write on the paper.
Participants,
Setting and Procedures
Participants for both questionnaires and interviews were chosen
from prep-school instructors at METU NCC. 11 volunteer teachers participated in
the study. 8 teachers took part in interviews and 5 teachers are women and 3 of
them are men. Moreover, 3 of the participants participated in questionnaire.
While 2 of them are women, one of them is men. In addition, the age of the
participants range between 23 and 36.Participants who voluntarily attended
questionnaire or interview were orally asked to participate to the study.
Before deciding on doing questionnaire or interview, the participants were
asked to participate in the interview; however, some of the participants
couldn’t have attended to the interview because of workload and busyness and
then the participants who couldn’t take part in interview were asked whether
they could attend the questionnaire, but many of them didn’t accept due to the
reasons that were covered above. Questionnaires were delivered to the
participant who wanted to take part in the questionnaire by hand and interviews
were done with the participants’ offices. Before the interviews were done, a
date for meeting was decided and the permission for recoding the interview with
mobile phone was gotten by asking the participants orally. The interviews took
about 15-25 minutes according to the answers of the participants. Before the
questionnaires were delivered to the participants, they were asked to write as
much clearly as possible and it was asked whether they need any clarification
about the questions that they confused about. In addition, during the
interviews, the questions were asked to the participants when they were
confused and needed clarifications and also during the interviews, extra
questions were asked to the interviewees to clarify the important points and
clearly explain or classify the critical thinking activities that they use in the
classroom. In addition, in order not to lead to puzzlement about the questions’
intention, more relax atmosphere was tried to form, but at some points, some
teachers hesitate to answer some questions and abstained from answering the
questions, so this abstention of the participants lead to the analysis of the
data more difficult and hard to examine.
Moreover, it was expected to see the useless answers that were used in
the questionnaire owing to not be able to allowing enough time of the
participants for answering the questions clearly because of the reasons that
were stated above. The age and gender of instructors aren’t thought to take
into account during the analysis of the data from the questionnaires and
interviews. At the end, in the study, the critical thinking activities that are
currently used in EFL classes at METU NCC are thought to find out as a result
of assessment of questions in the questionnaire and interviews.
This study could have been expanded; however, because of time
limit and the participants’ busyness and extensive workload this study was had
to be done with questionnaires and interviews instead of doing with only
interviews. Because of the limited number of participants, a pilot study
couldn’t be used in this study.
DATA ANALYSIS
In the analysis of the data collected from
interviews and questionnaires, there are 13 questions. Those questions are
prepared to find out what kind of critical thinking activities are currently
used at METU NCC. The total number of the participants is 11. 4 of them are men
and 7 of them are women. The results of the questions in Interviews and
Questionnaire are examined with the questions in this part by categorizing them
into groups. In addition to this, the data that was collected from Interviews
and Questionnaires are coded and put into categorization for more detailed
analysis and the collected data was listed in the charts.
The first question is
‘’How would you describe your philosophy of language teaching? ’’. In this question, three categorizations were
done .They are ‘’student-centered’’, ‘’communicative classroom environment’’
and ‘’role of teacher’’. The first categorization is ‘’student-centered’’.
While 2 of the participants directly said that their philosophy of language
teaching is ‘’student-centered’’, the other participant implied this by
explaining their philosophy of language teaching. In addition to this, they
didn’t give the same answers. The
second categorization is communicative classroom environment. In this category,
none of the participants said the same things. They stated their thoughts about
the language learning in Communicative Classroom Environment; however,
‘’effective communicating in language’’, ‘’social interactions’’ and ‘’fun and
enjoyable’’ have close meaning and show participants’ tendencies more
communicative activities. The ‘’time’’
in parenthesis (beside the sentences or words) implies how many times the
sentences or words were used
Student-centered
((stated) 2 times) (rest of them one time)
|
Communicative
classroom environment
|
·
Focus on their
need and different learning styles(1 time)
·
Building good
relationships with my students (1 time)
·
Being flexible(1
time)
·
Meeting the
academic need and expectations of the students (1 time)
·
Students have the
control(1 time)
·
Creating
self-directed learners (1 time)
·
Understand and
discover potential of my students (1 time)
·
Encourage them to
discover their potential in language learning (1 time)
·
Making things
easier(1 time)
·
Helping acquiring
knowledge (1 time)
·
Impose knowledge
(1 time)
|
·
Effective
communicating in language (1 time)
·
Social
interactions(1 time)
·
Fun and
enjoyable(1 time)
|
o In addition, the third category is ‘’role of teacher’’. None of
the participants except one talked about the role of the teacher as their
philosophy of language teaching. One
participant implied the role of the teacher as ‘’facilitator’’.
The second question is
‘’what kind of instructional activities do you use in the classroom?’’. In this
question, three categorizations were done according to the types of the
activities. The answers of the participants are suitable to categorize under
certain types of classroom activities. The categories are ‘’Communicative
activities’’, ‘’ Meaningful activities’’ and ‘’Mechanical Activities’’. The
first category is Communicative activities. In this category, 6 of 11
participants said that they use ‘’Group Work’’ as an activity in the class. 5
of the participants said ‘’Pair Work’’ as a classroom activity. The rest of the
activities were said one time by different participants. In the second category which is ‘’Meaningful
Activities’’, ‘’including videos’’ and ‘’PowerPoint’’ were stated two times by
two different participants. The other
activities were said one time. When we look at the meaningful activities, they
are more than Communicative activites; however, they aren’t used by many of the
teachers as in the communicative activities. The third category is ‘’Mechanical
activities’’. Only one participant mentioned about these activities and gave
the ‘’drilling activities’’ as example; however, these activities aren’t always
used by the participant. The ‘’time’’ in parenthesis (beside the sentences or
words) implies how many times the sentences or words were used.
Communicative
activities
|
Meaningful
activities
|
Mechanical
activities
|
·
Group work (6 times)
·
Pair work (5
times)
·
Demonstrations (1
time)
·
Dictation
activities(1time)
·
Information gap
activities(1 time)
|
·
Including
videos(2 times)
·
PowerPoint(2
times)
·
Story telling
activities (1 time)
·
Pictures (1 time)
·
Graphic
organizers/ mind maps (1 time)
·
Role-playing (1
time)
·
Games ( 1 time)
|
·
Drilling
activities(1 time)
|
The third question is
‘’Could you explain how you apply the activities and what kind of processes do
you follow in the application of these activities?’’. In this question, the
data was separated into processes which are ‘’warm-up’’,
‘’comprehension/input’’ and ‘’production/output’’. Except one participant, all
the participants answered this question. The first category is ‘’Warm-up’’, in
which while ‘’Give clear instructions’’, and ‘’ (use) Pair work’’ were stated
two times by different and the same participants, the others were stated one
time by different participants. The activities in Warm-up were put under the
process of ‘’Warm-up’’ because these activities show the preparation phase for
the lesson. The second category is Comprehension/production. In this category,
the activities were expressed one time by different participants. In this
category, the activities are more related the flow of the lesson and
input-based. In the ‘’production/ output category’’, ‘’matching numbers
activity’’ is stated two times and some of the other activities were said one
time by the same and different participants. The activities as ‘’Monitor’’,
’’Support number/things’’ and ‘’make them understand’’ were said by one
participant. These activities were put under this category because these
activities show the conclusion and last phases of the lesson.
The ‘’time’’ in parenthesis
(beside the sentences or words) implies how many times the sentences or words
were used.
Warm-up
|
Comprehension
/Input
|
Production/Output
|
·
Give clear
instructions (2 times)
·
Explain them what
to do(1 time)
·
Leave them what
to do (1 time)
·
(Use) Pair work
(2 times) or group work (1 time)
·
Making them
listen carefully(1 time)
·
Ask questions (1
time)Activity leading stage (1 time)
·
Making up context
(1 time)
|
·
Get involved (1
time)
·
Studying
individually (1 time)
·
Set up (1 time)
·
Walk around and
find out the things(1 time)
·
Integrating the
students with the lesson(1 time)
·
Questioning why
(1 time)
|
·
Matching
numbers/things (2 times)
·
Monitor(1 time)
·
Support
number/things(1 time)
·
Make them
understand(1 time)
·
Discovery the
rule (1 time)
·
Run(1 time)
·
Feedback(1 time)
|
The fourth question is
‘’How can you describe critical thinking skills?’’. In this question, the
thinking skills were classified under the categories of ‘’Thinking processes’’
and ‘’Thinking abilities’’ according to the thoughts and definitions of the
participants for critical thinking skills. The reason why the skills is
classified in this way is that the data under the category of ‘’Thinking
processes’’ show the processing of the information and the data under the
category of ‘’Thinking abilities’’ shows the skills of the learners to process
the information. Furthermore, ‘’Analyzing something deeply’’ was said two times
and ‘’Synthesize’’ was stated tree times in the category of ‘’Thinking
Processes’’. In addition, the rest of processes were said one time. In
addition, in the category of Thinking abilities, ‘’to question things’’ was
said three times by the same participants who expressed ‘’Synthesize’’. The
rest of thinking abilities were said one time.
In addition, to question things and to challenge you were stated by a
participant and reflection and self-discovery were said by a different
participant. The ‘’time’’ in parenthesis (beside the sentences or words)
implies how many times the sentences or words were used.
Thinking
processes
|
Thinking
abilities
|
·
Analyzing
something deeply(2 times)
·
Synthesize(3
times)
·
Doubt(1 time)
·
Evaluation
information(1 time)
·
Problem making
and reaching goals(1 time)
·
Understand with
justifications(1 time)
|
·
To decide it good
or bad(1 time)
·
To question
things (3 times)
·
To challenge
you(1 time)
·
Thinking about
what they are learning(1 time)
·
Questioning
themselves(1 time)
·
To prove its
correctness to themselves (1 time)
·
Ro decide what to
believe and what not to believe (1 time)
·
Reflection(1
time)
·
Self-discovery(1
time)
·
To understand
differences (1 time)
|
The fifth question is
‘’what are the characteristics of the students with such skills?’’. After the
data which was stated by the participants about the characteristics of the
students with critical thinking skills, the data was put under two
categorizations which are ‘’thinking skills of students’’ and ‘’characteristics
of such students’’. In the category of Thinking Skills of students, each of the
thinking skills was stated one time. ‘’to analyze’’, ‘’to question’’, and ‘’to
opposite’’ were stated by only one participants and ‘’think open-mindedly’’ and
‘’to complain’’ were said by a different participant. In addition, ‘’to
discover potential in them and ’’Approaching the task analytically’’ were used
one time by a different participant. All of the participants completely gave
different answers to the question, but there are some common features among the
answers. For example, students with such skills always use their brain and
thinking skills and don’t accept everything directly; however, they who have
critical thinking skills approach everything critically. In addition, in the
category of ‘’Characteristics of such students’’, the characteristics of the
students with critical thinking skills were listed. Apart from one
characteristic which is ‘’curious’’, all the other participants gave answer to
this question differently. This can be because of their perspective about the
students who have critical thinking skills. On the other hand, any of the
participants didn’t list bad characteristics that belong to such students, but
good characteristics. The ‘’time’’ in parenthesis (beside the sentences or
words) implies how many times the sentences or words were used.
Thinking Skills
of students
|
Characteristics
of such students
|
·
To analyze(1
time)
·
To
question(1time)
·
To opposite(1 time)
·
Think
open-mindedly(1 time)
·
To complain(1
time)
·
To interpret and
invent language structures (1 time)
·
Play with the
language(1 time)
·
To compare(1
time)
·
To see from
different perspectives (1 time)
·
Questioning what
they are learning(1 time)
·
To understand the
differences(1 time)
·
To discover
potential in them(1 time)
·
Approaching the
task analytically(1 time)
·
Having
question mark for every activity (1
time)
|
·
Tolerate
ambiguity(1 time)
·
Free learner(1
time)
·
Curious(2 times)
·
Don’t accept all
the answers(1 time)
·
Active(1 time)
·
To repeat what
learns in the class (1 time)
·
Quiet-open
minded(1 time)
·
Practical(1 time)
·
Intelligence(1
time)
·
Hard-working(1
time)
·
Eager to learn(1
time)
·
Independent(1
time)
·
Outgoing (1 time)
·
Eager to do
everything(1 time)
|
The sixth question is
‘’Do you think your students have such skills? If not, why?’’ While 4 of the
participants gave positive answers to this question, 6 of them gave negative
answers to this question. One participant gave unrelated answer to this
question. In addition, the problems that the participants stated were under two
categories which are ‘’Problems with the students and ‘’Problems because of the
outside factors’’. The answers of the participants are not the same; however,
they answered the questions by telling the problems because of the students or
outside factors. Moreover, these problems show why the participants’ students
don’t have critical thinking skills. The problems that the participants said
were listed below. ‘’Introvert’’, ’’Silent’’, ‘’Not productive’’ were stated by
one participant and ‘’Not trying to think about anything’’ and ‘’Not care’’
were said by a different participant. Moreover, ‘’Starting looking at learning
from a different point of view’’ and ‘’Concentrate on his own entering’’ the
university exam were said by only one participant and problems because of
outside factors were expressed by only one participant. The ‘’time’’ in
parenthesis (beside the sentences or words) implies how many times the
sentences or words were used.
Problems with the
students
|
Problems because
of Outside factors
|
·
Introvert(1 time)
·
Not productive(1
time)
·
Not knowing the
difference or to desire to question(1 time)
·
Not trying to
think about anything(1 time)
·
Not care(1 time)
·
Starting looking
at learning from a different point of view(1 time)
·
Concentrate on
his own entering the university exam(1 time)
·
Not having
studying habits or critical thinking skills(1 time)
·
They have never
done it before(1 time)
|
·
Formal
education(1 time)
·
Family
upbringings(1 time)
·
Turkish education
system(1 time)
·
Not asking the
students’ view to ask questions(1 time)
·
Wanting them
taking and accepting without questioning(1 time)
|
The seventh question is
‘’Do you use critical thinking activities?’’. In this question, whether the
participants use critical thinking activities were tried to find out. While 7
of the participants gave positive answer to these questions, 4 participants
gave negative answer to this question. They gave reasons for their negative
answers and the reasons that they gave were listed below and put under two
categories which are ‘’Problems because of Program’’ and ‘’Problems with the
students’’. These problems show why they don’t use Critical thinking activities
in their classrooms. Four participants didn’t talk about the some problems and
all of them said different problems for not being able to use critical thinking
activities in their classes. The problems that they express were listed below.
While ‘’extremely strict’’ and ‘’time is extremely scarce’’ were expressed by a
participant. In addition, ‘’Midterm’’ and ‘’only rules’’ were expressed by only
a participant and ‘’Speaking slowly’’ and ‘’certain activities’’ were said by a
different participants. The ‘’time’’ in parenthesis (beside the sentences or
words) implies how many times the sentences or words were used. The ‘’time’’ in
parenthesis (beside the sentences or words) implies how many times the
sentences or words were used.
Problems because of program
|
Problems with
students
|
·
Extremely
strict(1 time)
·
Time is extremely
scarce(1 time)
·
Midterm(1 time)
·
Certain
activities (1 time)
|
·
Only rules(1
time)
·
Beginner level(1
time)
·
Speaking slowly(1
time)
·
Not familiar with
this kind of activities(1 time)
|
The eighth question is
‘’If so, what type of critical thinking activities do you use?’’. In this
question, the aim was to find what kind of activities are currently used in EFL
classes at METU NCC and the participants informed us about what kind of
critical activities they use in their classes at this questions. One of the
participants who attended to Questionnaire didn’t answer this question. The
activities that the participants said were put under the categories of
Communicative Activities and Meaningful Activities’’. The reason why the
activities were classified in such a way is that the activities in
Communicative activities are more related with the use of the language in
communication and the activities in meaningful activities are more related the
integration and use of the language. Two of the participants stated as a
critical thinking activity that they use ‘’Discussion’’ and the other
activities were said by different participants; however, some of the activities
like ‘’Discussion questions’’ and ‘’Decision makings tasks’’ were stated by
only one participant. The ‘’time’’ in parenthesis (beside the sentences or
words) implies how many times the sentences or words were used.
Communicative
activities
|
Meaningful
Activities
|
·
Group work
activities(1 time)
·
Discussion
questions(1 time)
·
Discussion(2
times)
·
Debate(1 time)
·
Argument(1 time)
·
Decision making
tasks(1 time)
·
Ask questions
personal(1 time)
·
Roles in groups(1
time)
|
·
Reflective
learning(1 time)
·
Homework(1 time)
·
Open-ended ended
questions(1 time)
·
Reflection
activity(1 time)
·
Problem-solving
task in decision making(1 time)
·
Hypothetical
questions and situations(1 time)
·
Analytical
questions(1 time)
·
Keeping journal
(1 time)
·
Saying topic
before starting reading (1 time)
|
The ninth question is
‘’what kind of processes do you follow in the application of these critical
thinking activities?’’. In this question, the participants gave different
answers except ‘’giving the input first’’ and while some of them said the processes
during the activity according to category that is below, some talk about a
process or processes during the application of the activity. 3 of the
participants didn’t give answer to this question. The processes that the
participants apply in the activities were listed like the processes beginning
the task, during the task and end of the task processes and the processes in
the application of the activities were listed under the categories which are
‘’Warm-up’’, ‘’Input Stage’’, ‘’Practice’’, and ‘’Evaluation and Production’’.
In ‘’warm-up section’’, the participants usually use the ways like asking
questions, discussing the topic that will encourage the student to attend the
activity and in input stage, the participants draw the attention of the students
on the topic with the ways like ‘’to produce something’’. In addition, in
‘’practice’’ stage, the participant communicate with the students more and help
them to practice by using the ways as writing ‘’small dialogue’’ or
‘’monitoring them’’ and in ‘’evaluation and production’’ stage, the participant
make last changes or arrangements like ‘’revision, summarize’’ etc. The
‘’time’’ in parenthesis (beside the sentences or words) implies how many times
the sentences or words were used.
Processes
Warm-up
|
Input stage
|
Practice
|
Evaluation and
Production
|
Ask the students
about their idea(1 time)
Discuss the
topic(1 time)
Ask questions(1
time)
Convince that
atopic actually a questionable one(1 time)
Feel engaged (1
time)
Present
activity/problem(1 time)
|
To include
discussion(1 time)
To produce
something(1 time)
Giving the input
first(1 time)
Give
instructions(1 time)
Asking concept
questions (1 time)
|
Practice the
language together(1 time)
Write the
dialogue(1 time)
Monitor them(1
time)
Making practice
in groups or pair work(1 time)
Debate and
discussion(1 time)
Have small
groups(1 time)
Create discussion
groups(1 time)
|
Revision(1 time)
Controlling
whether the student understand or not(1 time)
Making brief
review(1 time)
Feedback(1 time)
Summarize(1 time)
Use English to
create new structure and play with the language(1 time)
Choose a solution
or reach conclusion(1 time)
Present the
conclusion by justifying(1 time)
Accept the
alternatives(1 time)
Rethink the task
(1 time)
|
Tenth question is ‘’How
do you think your students benefit from these activities?’’.In this question,
the participants’ thoughts about the benefits of the activities on the students
were wanted to learn; however, none of the participants gave the similar
answers. On the other hand, the answers that the participants gave were related
in some aspect, so they were classified under the some categories which are
‘’Benefits on Thinking’’, ‘’Benefits on Personality’’ and ‘’Benefit on
Learning’’. In addition, one of the participants who took part in Questionnaire
didn’t answer this question. The ‘’time’’ in parenthesis (beside the sentences
or words) implies how many times the sentences or words were used.
Benefits on
Thinking
|
Benefits on
Personality
|
Benefits on
learning
|
·
approach
everything by having critical thinking approach(1 time)
·
Think beyond the
context(1 time)
·
Becoming more
independent and self-critical(1 time)
·
Need to
questioning the structures(1 time)
|
·
To improve
personality(1 time)
·
Positive effect
on your self- confidence(1 time)
·
Have the
principle of self-discovery(1 time)
|
·
Make learning
effective(1 time)
·
Becoming more
confident and autonomous learners(1 time)
·
To improve
knowledge of a topic(1 time)
·
To create a new
structure(1 time)
·
Play with the
language(1 time)
·
Being more aware
of the usage of the language(1 time)
·
Making learners
stronger in case of discussion and argument(1 time)
|
Eleventh question is
‘’Does using critical thinking activities help the students make progress in
their language learning process?’’ Except one participant, all the participants
gave answer to this question. In this question, all the participants gave
positive answers. This question was more personal, so the participant didn’t
give the same answers except’’ learn
more’’ in the category of ‘’Progress
in learning style’’; however, when we look at their answers, it can be seen
that all the participants have some common related thoughts about the progress
in language learning as a result of using critical thinking activities. The answer
of the participants were classified under two categories which are ‘’Progress
in the use of language and learning of the language’’ and ‘’Progress in
learning style’’. The ‘’time’’ in parenthesis (beside the sentences or words)
implies how many times the sentences or words were used.
Progress in the
use of language and learning of the language
|
Progress in
learning style
|
·
Being better at
all of the subject in terms of English(1 time)
·
Language skills
improve(1 time)
·
Affect their
learning and make learning language long lasting process(1 time)
·
Becoming aware of
advantage of English if they are surviving in English speaking community(1
time)
·
Realize the
fluency and the ability to express themselves in English(1 time)
·
Improve language
learning skills(1 time)
·
Know to produce
language themselves(1 time)
·
Invent new voice and use the language
effectively(1 time)
·
Gain skills that
are transferable to language learning(1 time)
·
Discover of
units, language rules, points, aspects by using these skills(1 time)
·
Seeing the
difference of culture and way of approaching the language (1 time)
|
·
Feel more
motivated(1 time)
·
Learn something
new(1 time)
·
Learn more(2
times)
·
Make learning
effective(1 time)
|
Twelfth question is ‘’Do
you think critical thinking activities are helpful for thinking skills of EFL
students?’’In this question, apart from two participants, the other
participants gave positive answers and some of them gave long answer instead of
giving short answers. Some of their positive thoughts about the effects of
critical thinking activities on EFL students are listed below; however, they
didn’t give similar answers. Their answers are more related about the learning
method, perspective, speech, characteristic, thinking skills of the students.
In addition, 2 of the participants gave negative answers to this question and
their reasons for why critical thinking skills aren’t helpful for the thinking
skills of the students were listed under the title of Problems. These problems
are more related with background knowledge of the students about critical
thinking activities.
Benefits on
thinking skills
|
Problems
|
·
Express
themselves in an appropriate and in strong way(1 time)
·
Extrovert(1 time)
·
Making learning
process easier(1 time)
·
Trigger certain
mental processes(1 time)
·
Evaluate the
situation(1 time)
·
Try to come up
with the solution(1 time)
·
Broaden their
horizon(1 time)
|
·
Background(1
time)
·
They not used
to(1 time)
·
Lower levels(1
time)
|
The last question is ‘’What kind of activities would you use in
your language classroom?’’. 2 of the participants didn’t answer or give proper
answer to the question. In this question, it was wanted from the participants
to give information about what kind of activities they would use in the class.
The activities that participant gave are listed here in the categories of
Mechanical Activities, Communicative Activities and Meaningful Activities. Only
one participant said that she would use Mechanical Activities. In addition,
most of the participants said more communicative and meaningful activities. 3
of the participants said ‘’Discussion’’ activity. While 6 of the participants
stated communicative activities which are ‘’Asking their opinions about
something’’, ’’Discussion’’, ‘’Problem-solving’’ and ’’Group work’’, 7 of the
participants talked meaningful
activities that are Play more games, Using enjoyable and motivational things,
Comparison (pictures, case) and Real life situations. The ‘’time’’ in parenthesis
(beside the sentences or words) implies how many times the sentences or words
were used.
Mechanical
activities
|
Communicative
Activities
|
Meaningful
Activities
|
·
Kinesthetic
activity(1 time)
·
Total Physical
Response((1 time)
|
·
Asking their
opinions about something(1 time)
·
Discussion(3
times)
·
Problem-solving(1
time)
·
Group work(1
time)
·
Role-play(1 time)
|
·
Play more games(1
time)
·
Using enjoyable
and motivational things(1 time)
·
Comparison
(pictures, case) (1 time)
·
Decision making(1
time)
·
Reading(1 time)
·
More fun stuff
activities(1 time)
·
Games, songs,
karaoke activities(1 time)
·
Real life
situations(1 time)
|
DISCUSSION AND
RESULTS
This study intended to find out ‘’what kind of critical thinking
activities currently used in EFL classes at METU NCC?’’ In order to provide
more reliable data, the questions were examined one by one.Theone. The
first question is ’How would you describe your philosophy of language teaching?
Most of the participants directly implied or gave explanations that their
philosophy of language teaching is student-centered. According to most of the participants’
language teaching philosophy, the students are the focus of the lesson and the
entire environment in the classroom for language teaching are tried to create
for learning of the language. With regard to the participants, a teacher in a
classroom should ‘’be flexible, focus on their need and different learning
styles, meet the academic need and expectations of the students, meet the
academic need and expectations of the students, create self-directed learners,
understand and discover potential of my students, encourage them to discover
their potential in language learning, make things easier, help acquiring
knowledge, impose knowledge. In addition to this, according to Meece (2003,
pp.111)”., [C2] in
student-centered teaching, ‘’students aren’t passive learners anymore; however,
they are active participants in learning and co-constructors of knowledge”. In
addition, some participants see their philosophy of language learning more
communicative in the classroom environment. For example, with regard to them,
there should be effective communicating in language and social interactions and
the classroom should be fun and enjoyable. According to critical thinking
activities in the classroom, the student should be creative and active in
language learning and the students must use their existing knowledge and
communicative abilities that will help them or reaching maximum participation
to the process of learning through the activities (Gaskarea, Mashhady, Dousti, 2010, pp. 36).
When the
question which is ‘’what kind of instructional activities do you use in the
classroom?’’ was asked to the participants, it was seen that 7 of them tend to
use more communicative activities in the classroom. Most of them who use
communicative activities prefer to use group work and pair work in the
classroom and some of them prefer ‘’Role-playing, Demonstrations, Dictation
activities, Information gap activities ‘’. The reason why the participants
choose the communicative activities can be because of the fact that
communicative activities are mostly based on the use of language interactively.
With regard to Richards, (2006, pp.16), communicative practice
means that the practice of language in a real context is the focus and the
language that is used during the information transferring in real context is
not foreseen(2006, pp.16). In addition, five of the
participants chose meaningful activities which are ‘’Including videos,
PowerPoint, Storytelling activities, Pictures, Graphic organizers/ mind maps,
Games’’. The meaningful activities provide the chance of understand the various
structures and usages of the target language beside the usage of it. In
addition to this, meaningful activities necessitate the learners to make
meaningful choices while implementing the activities as they use the language
(Richards, J. C., 2006, pp.16). Moreover, only one participant chose mechanical
activities. Although the participant says that s/he doesn’t always want to use
mechanical activities like drilling activities. Substitution and repetition drills
can be examples for the mechanical activities. The reason for why the
mechanical activities aren’t preferred due to the fact that Mechanical practice
refers to a controlled practice. In Mechanical activity, the students
successfully implement the activity instead of correctly or completely
comprehending the language that they use (Richards, J. C., 2006, pp.16).
In the question which is ‘’could you explain how you apply the
activities and what kind of processes do you follow in the application of these
activities?’’. While some participants who answered this question talked about
the some processes of the application of the activities, the others talked
about all the processes for the application of the activities. In the warm-up
process, the participants expressed that they give velar instructions, explain
the learners what to do, leave them what to do, use pair work or group work,
make them listen carefully, ask questions and make up context. However, one of
the participant said that he has a specific processes in the lesson and he said
he firstly performs ‘’activity leading’’. This process was put under the
warm-up process because it prepares the students for lesson as warm-up. Warm-up
is important for the application of the activities because it help the teachers
to create a new atmosphere in the classroom and to decide what kind of activity
they will do in the class. The second process is comprehension/input. This
process was called like this because in these processes according to the
participants, the teacher gives input and this process refers to the
understanding of the input. In this process, the participants expressed that
they get involved, study individually and walk around and find out the things,
integrate the students with the lesson and question why. The participant that
was stated above have a different specific process that he calls ‘’setup’’ and
this process was put under the processes of Comprehension/input. When we look
at the answers of the participants for this processes, it can be said that the
participants try to get the students involve in activity, make the students
understand and participate the activity. The last process is
‘’Production/Output’’. Except ‘’Matching numbers/things’’ activity, all the
participants gave different answers to this question. According to the answer
of the participants, they try to integrate what they taught to the students.
This process was called as Production/Evaluation because with regard to the
answers of the participants, the students were wanted to produce what they
learn before and the participant evaluates what the students’ knowledge learn
more when they realize that their efforts are judged and evaluated (Candlin and
Edelhoff, 1982). [C3] In
addition, the participant who has some specific processes call this as process
as ‘’Run’’ and ‘’ Feedback’’.
In the fourth question, the participants were wanted to define
critical thinking skills according to themselves. Some of participants gave
similar answers and said that critical thinking skills are analyzing something
deeply, synthesizing, and questioning things. The other participants defined
critical skills according to themselves. With regard to their different
definition or explanations, critical thinking skills are Doubt, Evaluation
information, Problem making and reaching goals, Understand with justifications,
to decide it good or bad, to question things, to challenge you, thinking about
what they are learning, questioning themselves, to prove its correctness to
themselves, to decide what to believe and what not to believe, Reflection,
Self-discovery, to understand differences. When we look at these definitions,
we see that critical thinking skills change to the teacher to teacher ;however,
it can be seen in the definitions, almost each participant see critical
thinking skills to make the students active and to be critical at learning
something. With regard to Scheffer and Rubenfeld([C4] 2000,
2001), critical thinking skills are ‘’Analyzing,
Applying Standards, Discriminating,
Information Seeking, Logical Reasoning, Predicting, Transforming
Knowledge[C5] ’’. When we compare the answers of the
participants and the categorization of Scheffer and Rubenfelf(2000, 2001), it
can be seen that all the explanation or definitions by the participants for the critical thinking skills are related
with each other at least at one point. For example, discriminating in the
categorization of Scheffer and Rubenfeld(2000, 2001) are be connected to the
‘’Doubt’’ at the description of the participants for the critical thinking
skills.
The fifth question is ‘’what are the characteristics of the
students with such skills?’’. In these questions, the participants gave
different answers except ‘’curious’’ to the question according to themselves.
Their answers were put under two categories which are ‘’Thinking skills of
students’’ and ‘’Characteristics of such students’’. Descriptions of the
participants under the ‘’Thinking skills of students’’ are Don’t accept all the
answers, to analyze, to question, to opposite, think open-mindedly, to
complain, to interpret and invent language structures, play with the language,
to compare, to see from different perspectives, questioning what they are
learning, to understand the differences, to discover potential in them, to
approach the task analytically, to have question for every activity. In
addition, according to the participants, the characteristics of the students
Tolerate ambiguity, Free learner, Curious, Active, to repeat what learns in the
class, Quiet-open minded, Practice, Intelligence, Hard-working, Eager to learn,
Independent, Outgoing. All the
descriptions of the participants for the students with critical thinking
skills carry similar meanings with the
description of Nasville State Community College (2012) for the characteristics of critical thinkers.
With regard to them, critical thinkers are ‘’deliberate, think
carefully, recognize complexities and work within the, curious,
desire to seek the truth, communicate clearly and logically, fair-minded, share
intellectual, empathy, demonstrate integrity, develop reasonable conclusions
using analysis, evaluation, inference, and deduction’’.
Moreover, according to the definition of John Dewey (1933,
p. 118) for critical thinking, critical thinking is’’ active, persistent and careful
consideration of a belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the
grounds which support it and the further conclusions to which it ends’’.
When
we look at this definition for critical thinking, we can see that
the participant thoughts about the students with critical thinking skills carry
same meanings.
The sixth
question is ‘’Do you think your students have such skills? If not why? ’’ While
five of the participants gave positive answers to the question, 6 of them gave
negative answers. There are some problems that lead to the participants gave
negative answer. According to six of the participants, their students don’t have
such skills and they gave some reasons for this. These reasons were put under
the categories of Problems with the students and Problems with the outside
factors. Problems which originate from the students are being introvert, not
productive Not knowing the difference or to desire to question, Not trying to
think about anything, Not care, Starting looking at learning from a different
point of view, Concentrate on his own entering the university exam, Not having
studying habits or critical thinking skills, having have never done it before.
As result of these problems of the students, with regard to the participants
who gave negative answer, their students don’t have critical thinking skills.
Furthermore, there are problems that are based on outside factors. They are
Formal education, Family upbringings, Turkish education system, Not asking the
students’ view to ask questions, wanting them taking and accepting without
questioning. As a consequence of these statements of the participants about
because of the student and outside factors, it was seen that more than half of
the participants’ students don’t critical thinking skills. Moreover when the
problems that originate from students and outside factors are compared, it can
be seen that the students are not initiative and willing to learn or become a
critical thinker; however, when we look at the outside factor, it can predicted
that problems because of the students and problems from outside factors are
connected with each other. For example, a correlation between the problems
which are ‘’Turkish education system and ‘’Concentrate on his own entering the
university exam’’ may be done because the application and the procedure that
are applied in the system may lead to the students’ concentration on his own
entering the university exam; as a consequence, the students just concentrate
only the knowledge exam and forget to question what they are learning, so the
students can become a player who plays
the role or as the creature at the back of the rabbit in the competition
without knowing what s/he is doing.
In seventh question which is ‘’Do you use critical thinking
activities?’’, 7 of the participant said that they use critical thinking
activities, but four of the participants said that they don’t use critical
thinking activities. The participants who said ‘’No’’ or gave different
negative answers and said some problems that are connected with each other. The
problems that stated by the participants were classified under the categories
of problems because of the program and students. The problems which are because
of the program are ‘’extremely strict, time is extremely scarce, midterm,
certain activities and the problems due to the students are ‘’Only rules,
Beginner level, Speaking slowly, Not familiar with this kind of activities’’. Instead of stating
briefly, the participants need to tell these problems to explain their reasons
for giving negative answers.
The eighth question is ‘’If so, what type of critical thinking
activities do you use?’’. In this question the aim to find out what kind of
critical thinking activities are currently applied in METU NCC will be seen. In
Interviews, only one activity was said by two participants and the other
activities were said one time by different or the same participant (e.g. only
one participant says two activities in the list and the others didn’t express
the same one). The activities that were said by the participants were listed
under the categorizations of ‘’Communicative activities’’ and ‘’Meaningful activities’’.
In the next question, the aim was to find
what kind of activities are currently used in EFL classes at METU NCC and the
participants informed us about what kind of critical activities they use in
their classes at this questions. One of the participants who attended to
Questionnaire didn’t answer this question. The activities that the participants
said were put under the categories of Communicative Activities and Meaningful
Activities’’. The reason why the activities were classified in such a way is
that the activities in Communicative activities are more related with the use
of the language in communication and the activities in meaningful activities
are more related the integration and use of the language. Two of the
participants stated as a critical thinking activity that they use
‘’Discussion’’ and the other activities were said by different participants;
however, some of the activities like ‘’Discussion questions’’ and ‘’Decision
makings tasks’’ were stated by only one participant. The communicative
activities that the participants said are ‘’Group work activities, Discussion
questions, Discussion, Debate, Argument, Decision making tasks, Ask questions
personal, Roles in groups and the meaningful activities are Reflective
learning, Homework, Writing your biography, Open-ended ended questions,
Reflection activity, Problem-solving task in decision making, Hypothetical
questions and situations, Analytical questions, Keeping journal and Saying
topic before starting reading. The reason for why the activities were listed
under such categories can be seen in explanations about mechanical, meaningful
and communicative activities. In order to determine whether the activities that the participants said are
critical activities, the results at the end of the review of literature ,
definitions of John
Dewey[C6] (1933)and
Michael Scriven & Richard Paul (1987) about
critical thinking and the
characteristics of the critical thinking activities in the introduction part
were compared. It can be possible for us to whether these activities are
applied according to critical thinking activities; however, if we look at the
characteristics of these activities, we can make comparison. Firstly,
communicative activities(’Group work activities, Discussion questions,
Discussion, Debate, Argument, Decision making tasks, Ask questions personal,
Roles in groups) necessitate the inclusion of the students in the activities ‘’emotionally and cognitively and the use of the
language apprehensively and productively, the opportunity of taking feedback
for the students’’(Gaskaree,
Mashhady, Dousti, 2010, 38-39). In
addition, the lesson passes in an attractive, communicative, collaborative and
active atmosphere for learning of the language during the application for these
activities. All these characteristics belong to the critical thinking
activities with regard to the information above. When we look at these
characteristics of these activities and the ways for the application of these
activities, we can say that these communicative activities that the
participants emphasized are the critical thinking activities. Furthermore,
meaningful activities ( Reflective learning, Homework, Writing your biography,
Open-ended ended questions, Reflection activity, Problem-solving task in
decision making, Hypothetical questions and situations, Analytical questions, Keeping
journal and Saying topic before starting reading) require the students’
inclusion in negotiating meaning, the use of intellectual capacity, awareness
of the language and problem posing and solving processes, so the language and
thinking skills of the students develop. These are also characteristics of
critical thinking activities and these characteristics are in almost all of
these activities. In addition to this, ’’keeping journal’’ in meaningful
activities have same characteristics with dialogue journal With regard to
Peyton (2000), Dialogue journal is an interactive writing between a teacher and
students as a conversation. Keeping journal is like dialogue journal in many
aspects as interaction of teacher and the students, so it can be said that keeping
journal can be a factor for creating more attractive and collaborative
communication for the development of students’ language. As a consequence, it
can be said that apart from two participants who didn’t give proper answers to
the questions, all the participants know the critical thinking activities and
try to apply them in their classes.
The ninth question is
‘’what kind of processes do you follow in the application of these critical
thinking activities?’’. In this question, the participant said the processes
that they follow in the application of the activities that were listed above.
Except one participant all the participants answered this question. These
activities put under the categories of Warm-up (ask the students about their
idea, discuss the topic, ask questions, convince that atopic actually a
questionable one, feel engaged, present activity/problem), Input stage(to
include discussion, to produce something, giving the input first, give
instructions, Asking concept questions, Practice(practice the language
together, write the dialogue, monitor them, making practice in groups or pair
work, debate and discussion, have small groups, create discussion groups)and
Evaluation and Production (revision, controlling whether the student understand,
making brief review, feedback, summarize, use English to create new structure
and play with the language, choose a solution or reach conclusion, present the
conclusion by justifying, accept the alternative, rethink the task). With
regard to the processes of critical thinking activities that were written in
Introduction part, the activities in Warm-up, Input stage and ‘’practice’’ have
the characteristics to attract the attention of the students and the
participation and the student to the activities are tried by providing the
chance of practicing and applying activities and then At Evaluation and
Production stage, the students can find the chance of answering the open-ended
questions by negotiating the meaning. When we look at the characteristics of
the activities that the teachers said, we can say that these activities that
were written above have the characteristics of critical thinking activities.
Tenth question is ‘’How
do you think your students benefit from these activities?’’.In this question,
except two participants, the participants expressed their thoughts about the
benefits of the activities on the student. The thoughts of the participants
about the students were classified under
the some categories which are ‘’Benefits on Thinking’’(approach everything by
having critical thinking approach, think beyond the context , becoming more
independent and self-critical , need to questioning the structures) ‘’Benefits
on Personality’’(to improve personality, positive effect on your self-
confidence, have the principle of self-discovery) and ‘’Benefit on
Learning’’(make learning effective, becoming more confident and autonomous
learners, to improve knowledge of a topic, to create a new structure, play with
the language, being more aware of the usage of the language, make learners
stronger in case of discussion and argument). When the benefits of the critical
thinking activities according to the participants were compared with the
processes and characteristics of the critical thinking activities, it can be seen
that all the answers that the participants gave show the development of the
students to become critical thinker during the application of the activities.
Eleventh question is
‘’Does using critical thinking activities help the students make progress in
their language learning process?’’. In these questions, except one participant
the other participants gave answer to these questions and their thoughts about
making progress of the students in their language learning process as a result
of using critical thinking activities.
In twentieth question
which is ’’Do you think critical thinking activities are helpful for thinking
skills of EFL students?’’. In this question, except two participants, the other
participants said that critical thinking skills are helpful for thinking skills
of the students. With regard to the participants who gave positive answers, the
critical thinking activities make
learning process easier and trigger certain mental processes(Evaluate
the situation and Try to come up with the solution),Broaden their horizon,
Express themselves in an appropriate and in strong way and make the learners
extrovert. However, according to the participants who gave negative answers,
there are some problems about critical thinking activities about the
helpfulness of them on thinking abilities. These are Background, Lower level
Problems and not using of the activities before.
The last question is ‘’what kind of activities would you use in
your language classroom?’’. 2 of the participants didn’t answer or give proper
answer to the question. In this question, it was wanted from the participants
to give information about what kind of activities they would use in the class.
The activities that participant gave are listed here in the categories of Mechanical
Activities, Communicative Activities and Meaningful Activities. Only one
participant said that she would use Mechanical Activities. In addition, most of
the participants said more communicative and meaningful activities. 3 of the
participants said ‘’Discussion’’ activity. While 6 of the participants stated
communicative activities which are ‘’Asking their opinions about something’’,
’’Discussion’’, ‘’Problem-solving’’ and ’’Group work’’, 7 of the participants
talked meaningful activities that are
Play more games, Using enjoyable and motivational things, Comparison (pictures,
case).
To conclude, it was seen at the end of the analysis of the data
that many of the participants have different definitions for their language
teaching and apply the some similar activities such as group work, pair work
and matching numbers/things. The data
analyzed and discussed according to the questions one by one because the
answers of the participants in the questions determine the appropriation of the
characteristics of critical thinking activities. In addition, during the
analysis of the data about critical thinking skills and activities, it was seen
that many of the participants have different ideas about critical thinking;
however, their ideas about critical thinking meet on some points such as thinking abilities and
thinking processes and in brief, the participants know what critical thinking
means. On the other hand, in the analysis of their ideas about whether they use
critical thinking activities and their students have critical thinking skills,
it was found that 6 of the participants don’t think that their students have
critical thinking skills and 4 of them don’t use critical thinking activities.
When we look at why the participants think that their students don’t have
critical thinking skills, it was seen that there are problems because of
students (not productive, introvert) and outside factors (family upbringings
and formal education system).In addition to this, 2 of the participants thought
that critical thinking activities are not helpful for the development of the
thinking skills of EFL students because of their background, lower levels such
as beginner, not using them before. However, when we look at the participants
who use critical thinking activities, it was found that they know what critical
thinking activities are and follow the processes that appropriate for making
the learners critical thinkers. It was said before that 4 of the participants
don’t use critical thinking activities; on the other hand, it was discovered
that except two participants, the other participants use critical thinking
activities. The result showed us that 2 of the participants are not aware
whether they use critical thinking activities or not. Moreover, it was found
that except one similar activity which is keeping journal none of the
activities in the literature review are used by the participants. As it was
covered above, this can be because of the background, level of the students and
whether they use critical thinking activities before or not. However, we
discovered that the activities that were used by the participants carry the
characteristics like being collaborative, interactive and communicative
classroom atmospheres etc. and these activities that the participants use in
the classroom encourage the students to think critically as the activities in
Review of the literature.
CONCLUSION
Before beginning of the research, it was thought that the teachers
in EFL classes would use the activities like Project Work, Dialogue Journal, Reading Logs in the classroom; however,
it was seen that teachers can use such activities because as the some of the
participants stated that background, lower level of the students are not enough
to use these activities and it isn’t known whether the students used these
activities before or not. On the other hand, it was seen that the teachers
usually use communicative and meaningful activities and these activities carry
the same characteristics of critical thinking activities that were described in
the part of Review of Literature and encourage the students to think
critically.
To conclude, at the end of the research, it was seen that the
activities that the participants use carry the similar characteristics with the
activities that were covered in Review of Literature. In addition, most of the
participants are tend to use communicative activities like group work, pair
work etc. and meaningful activities as problem solving task, hypothetical
questions. During the application of these activities, according to the
statements of the teachers, the students are more willing and enthusiastic to
learn during these activities, as a result, they gain critical thinking skills.
However, two of the participants tend to use more mechanical activities. It is
thought that these activities can prevent the development of the critical
thinking skills because these kind of activities are based on memorization and
repetition (this can be called rote learning), not learning meaningfully.
Furthermore, it was discovered that two of the participants are not aware
whether they use critical thinking activities, but they use critical thinking
activities without aware of them. At the end, it can be said that critical
thinking activities are mostly used in EFL classes at METU NCC.
Additionally, there can be question why the activities that the
participants use are called critical thinking activities although they are not
completely critical thinking activities. The reason for this is that by
depending on the characteristics of the activities in Introduction and Review
of Literature part, it was thought that if an activity encourage or help the
learners to think critically and then gain critical thinking skills, they can
be called critical thinking activities or partially critical thinking activities.
IMPLICATIONS FOR
THE FUTURE RESEARCH
The subject of this study is controversial among the educators.
The research scope of this study was narrowed to the critical thinking
activities that are currently in practice in EFL classes at METU NCC. In this
part, the difficulties and limitations in that were confronted during the
research will be covered and it is aimed to show a way for the future
researchers who do research about the same subject in this study (may about the
same topic and research area)
At the beginning of the research, the understanding of the topic
is important very much because for the readers, it is necessary to understand
what the main idea of the topic that is the focus of the research is. In order
to give clear explanations of the subject of the study, the clear explanation
that was clearly given in different sources by other researchers can be
provided in the introduction part of the research. After the subject of the
research is introduced, the scope of the research should be narrowed down.
However, this can be challenging issue because a topic that included many
sub-categories can be confronted, so the researcher needed to reach the
sub-points or categories. After this, the previous field researches that were
done should be analyzed according to sub-categories or points.
After the analysis of the previous researches, the aim and way of
the research should be determined and data collection ways should be according
to the aim. There are important points that should be considered in the data
collection process. The researcher should be careful about what knowledge is
beneficial for the research, so the interviews or questionnaires or other data
collections tools should be arranged with regard to the aim. After the data is
collected, the data should be arranged for the specific aim and unnecessary
points shouldn’t be used, but the related parts should be taken under
consideration.
When the data is analyzed and results are found in a research
about critical thinking activities, the activities should be classified
according to their characteristics because when the activities which are seen
as critical thinking activities as result of analysis of the data are
categorized with regard to the specific
characteristics of the critical thinking activities, more accurate results or
assumptions about whether the activities that were found in the data carry the
characteristics if critical thinking activities can be seen. In order to
emphasize again, the aim of this study was to find out what kind of critical
thinking activities are currently used in EFL classes at METU NCC. In the
collection, analysis and discussion of the data, many things like activities
that were stated by the participants were needed to take under consideration
because of their connection and in this study, the collection of the data was
difficult because of narrow scope of the study. In addition to this, the time
for completing the study was limited, so more detailed study couldn’t be
provided. In order to not face any problem and carry forward a study, the
researchers who will do research about the critical thinking activities should
be careful about determining the scope and aim of the study, prepared for
collection more detailed data and take account of all the activities that
aren’t seem as critical thinking activities despite the fact that those
activities carry the characteristics of critical thinking activities. In
addition to this, researchers should determine their limit and time to complete
the study in order not to exceed the extent of the subject of the study.
Moreover, the researchers who will do research about critical thinking
activities should know what critical thinking and critical thinking activities
are before beginning the study.
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Appendix
1- Interview
Questions
1. How would you describe your philosophy of language teaching?
2. What kind of instructional activities do you use in the classroom?
3. Could you explain how you apply the activities and what kind of processes do you follow during the application of these activities?
4. How can you describe critical thinking skills?
5. What are the characteristics of the students with such skills?
6. Do you think your students have such skills? If not why?
7. Do you use critical thinking activities?
8. If so, what type of critical thinking activities do you use?
9. What kind of processes do you follow in the application of these critical thinking activities?
10. How do you think your students benefit from these activities?
11. Does using critical thinking activities help the students make progress in their language learning process?
12. Do you think critical thinking activities are helpful for thinking skills of EFL students?
13. What kind of activities would you use in your language classroom?
1. How would you describe your philosophy of language teaching?
2. What kind of instructional activities do you use in the classroom?
3. Could you explain how you apply the activities and what kind of processes do you follow during the application of these activities?
4. How can you describe critical thinking skills?
5. What are the characteristics of the students with such skills?
6. Do you think your students have such skills? If not why?
7. Do you use critical thinking activities?
8. If so, what type of critical thinking activities do you use?
9. What kind of processes do you follow in the application of these critical thinking activities?
10. How do you think your students benefit from these activities?
11. Does using critical thinking activities help the students make progress in their language learning process?
12. Do you think critical thinking activities are helpful for thinking skills of EFL students?
13. What kind of activities would you use in your language classroom?
Note: The same questions were used in Questiınaire.
Appendix 2 –Questionnaire
Participant’s
name:
Participant’s
age:
Level of the participant’s
student:
EFL311-QUESTIONAİRE
QUESTIONS
1.
How would you describe your philosophy of
language teaching?
2.
What kind of instructional activities do you use in the classroom?
3.
Could
you explain how you apply the activities and what kind of processes do you
follow during the application of these activities?
4.
How
can you describe critical thinking skills?
5.
What are the characteristics of the students
with such skills?
6.
Do
you think your students have such skills? If not why?
7.
Do
you use critical thinking activities?
8.
If so, what type of
critical thinking activities do you use?
9.
What kind of processes do you follow in the
application of these critical thinking activities?
10.
How
do you think your students benefit from these activities?
11.
Does
using critical thinking activities help the students make progress in their
language learning process?
12.
Do
you think critical thinking activities are helpful for thinking skills of EFL
students?
13. What kind of activities would you use in your
language classroom?