Enhancing critical thinking in foreign language learners

Enhancing critical thinking in foreign language learners

Shirkhani, Servat
Fahim, Mansour

Critical thinking refers to the individuals‘ ability to think and make correct decisions independently. Critical thinking has been used in first language acquisition for a long time and has been recently introduced into foreign language teaching contexts. Nowadays enhancing critical thinking in learners is considered one of the foreign language teachers‘ tasks due to its high position in foreign language classrooms. There are various factors affecting language learners‘ critical thinking skills. Two of these factors are materials used and types of activities introduced and worked on in the classroom. Therefore, through managing classroom materials and activities, language teachers can help learners develop critical thinking skills. This presentations aims at introducing some ways in which language teachers can enhance critical thinking in foreign language learners through using materials and activities which require critical thinking on the part of learners. The teacher can prepare, choose, and/or adapt already existing materials so that they enhance learners‘ critical thinking ability. Also the teacher can choose activities which demand learners to develop critical thinking skills since not all activities lend themselves to critical thinking on the part of learners. In this presentation, some suggestions for language teachers to make sound choice of such materials and activities will be presented.

Conference or Workshop Item
PeerReviewed

2011-05

586