Critical and creative thinking skills in a second language What in this introduction course has challenged my thinking?

In what way will this affect my teaching of Dutch as a second language to the young Greek adults? To answer these questions I have to go back to the first two weeks when I was thinking about the possibility of using thinking skills in my language lessons. I concluded that I was already using intuitively and spontaneously the thinking routines See Think Wonder"1 of David Perkins and the Think Pair Share2 of Frank Lyman (1981) as mentioned in lecture 2.2. I also noted that these skills had helped to achieve some of my goals like a greater motivation, an active attitude, better concentration, better understanding of my students which are some of the key goals 3of Visible Thinking as well. Although what still puzzled me then was what other kind of thinking skills I could use in my lessons. And I was wondering how important, besides the changes in the students behavior, thinking skills are in a language lesson. In the beginning of the second millennium education changed from an individual development to a development of communities4. These changes had also an impact on the approach of teaching foreign languages. From the 1950s the approach of language teaching changed from a systematic approach, which emphasizes just learning the language, to a communicative approach, which emphasizes the use of language.5 A communicative approach although is, in accordance to Kabilan (2000)6 not enough. He believes that language learners can only be proficient in a language "if they are able to think creative in the production of ideas and critically support these ideas with a logical explanation, details and examples when using the target language. However I think that being proficient in a language must not be the only reason to use critical and creative thinking skills in language teaching. With the rapidly technological changes the need for highly skilled workforce increased7 and the goal of education had to change. As Fink (2003) said:" Social and individual learners now have different needs, both in terms of what people need to learn and how they can and should learn."8. In 1994 Gardiner 9made a list of "critical competencies" for citizens and workers from leaders in business, industry and government:

personal responsibility, ability to act in principled, ethical fashion, skill in oral and written communication, interpersonal and team skills, skills in critical thinking and problem-solving, respect for people different from oneself, ability to change, ability and desire for lifelong learning.

http://www.visiblethinkingpz.org/VisibleThinking_html_files/03_ThinkingRoutines/03c_Core_routines/SeeThinkWonder/SeeThi nkWonder_Routine.html Web Retrieved 13 Febr 2014 2 Frank Lyman F. T. (1981). The Responsive Classroom Discussion: The Inclusion of All Students. In A. Anderson (Ed.), Mainstreaming Digest (pp. 109-113). College Park: University of Maryland Press http://www.visiblethinkingpz.org/VisibleThinking_html_files/03_ThinkingRoutines/03d_UnderstandingRoutines/ThinkPairShare /ThinkPairShare_Routine.html Web Retrieved 13 Febr 2014 3 http://www.visiblethinkingpz.org/VisibleThinking_html_files/01_VisibleThinkingInAction/01a_VTInAction.html web retrieved 03 Feb-2014 4 Townsend.Teachers in Third Millennium Schools: From Competence to Capability. A keynote address presented at the International Council on Education for Teaching Conference, Windhoek, Namibia, July 17-21, 2000 5 Creative and Critical Thinking in Language Classrooms Muhammad Kamarul Kabilan mkamarul [at] yahoo.com,University Technology MARA (Kedah, Malaysia) The Internet TESL Journal http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Kabilan-CriticalThinking.html Web Retrieved 26 Febr. 2014 6 Creative and Critical Thinking in Language Classrooms Muhammad Kamarul Kabilan mkamarul [at] yahoo.com,University Technology MARA (Kedah, Malaysia) The Internet TESL Journal http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Kabilan-CriticalThinking.html Web Retrieved 26 Febr. 2014 7 Townsend. Thinking and acting both Locally and Globally: New Issues for School Development Planning 5 p 8 Fink, L.D., 2003, Creating Significant learning Experiences: An Integrated Approach to Designing College Courses. Jossey-Bass Publishers, San Francisco, CA, 295 p. 9 Gardiner, L., 1994, Redesigning Higher Education: Producing Dramatic Gains in Student learning. ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report 7, Washington D.C., George Washington University

There are several ways to promote critical and creative thinking skills in language teaching and I would like to start with the" Pedagogy of Question" by Freire (1971&1973)10 as this method is based on the life situation and the reality of the learner whereby the situations are made into problem-solving situations. The teacher has to ask to the learner and has to listen to the learners' question. The questions of the teacher have to be inductive (from concrete to analytical) regarding the discussion of the situation. Kabilan gives a sample activity11 which is based on the problemposing methodology of Nion-Ponder (1995)12: Topic: Cleanliness Objectives: 1. Think creatively and critically 2. To find solutions to problems based on logical reasons Task: Based on the picture (a picture of unattended waste bin) given, 1. 2. 3. 4. Why are there so many 'things' flying over the bin? Where have you seen this scenery? Do you feel that this picture reflects cleanliness? Why? What is the one thing that is needed to ensure cleanliness in the places that you have mentioned?

I also would like to enhance critical thinking trough assessment practices; By using ,for example, ongoing assessments during the course I will have the opportunity to test a larger range of knowledge and skills, including critical thinking skills13. Critical and creative thinking skills will change my lessons as they are essential for an effective functioning in the globalizing world, "as learners are capable of thinking critically and creatively in order to achieve the goals of curriculum; capable to make decisions and to solve problems; capable to use their thinking skills and of understanding language or its contents; capable to treat thinking skills as lifelong learning and finally they are intellectual, physically, emotionally and spiritually well-balanced." (Mayuddin et al (2004)14

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Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: The Seabury Press.

Freire, P. (1973). Education for Critical Consciousness. New York: The Seabury Press. Creative and Critical Thinking in Language Classrooms Muhammad Kamarul Kabilan mkamarul [at] yahoo.com,University Technology MARA (Kedah, Malaysia) The Internet TESL Journal http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Kabilan-CriticalThinking.html Web Retrieved 26 Febr. 2014 12 Nixon-Ponder, S. (1995). Using Problem-posing Dialogue in Adult Literacy Education. Teacher to Teacher. Washington: Department of Education. ERIC: 381677. 13 International Conference on Education and Educational Psychology (ICEEPSY 2011) Enhancing critical thinking in foreign language learners Servat Shirkhani a, Mansour Fahim, PhD b a Khorram Abad Branch, Islamic Azad University, Khoram Abad, PC: 149561741, Iran b Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877042811026759 Web retrieved 25 Febr.2014 14 Mahyuddin, R., Lope Pihie, Z. A., Elias, H., & Konting, M. M. (2004). The incorporation of thinking skills in the school curriculum. Kajian Malaysia, Jld, 22(2), 23-33.
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