1. Critical Thinking

2. Critical thinking refers to a diverse range of intellectual skills and activities concerned with evaluating information and evaluating our thoughts in a disciplined way..

3. Critical Thinking Skills
Organizing Skills
Synthesizing
Predicting
Generating Skills
Critical Thinking Skills
Identifying
Inferring
Analyzing
Visualizing
Summarizing
Questioning

4. Characteristics of critical thinking

5. IT’S ACTIVE, NOT PASSIVE
The pupils are the ones who do the thinking. They shouldn’t wait for someone to guide them or to think for them.
The core of critical thinking is being responsive to information and not just accepting it.
Questioning is the most important part of critical thinking.

6. Critical thinking is not negative
Many when they hear the word critical, they think of criticism or judgment or debating your opponent.
But the word critical refers to criteria, the way of judgment using criteria, not just tearing down.
a critical thinker
a critic

7. Children are not born with the ability to think critically.

8. We tend to teach children what to think instead of how to think
We tend to teach children what to think instead of how to think. This, of course is the opposite of what should be occurring.

9. Critical thinking is the process of examining and testing propositions to determine whether or not they correspond to reality.

10. What do critical thinkers do?!
Gather relevant information
Ask appropriate questions
Efficiently process information
Come to reliable conclusions
Reason logically from information

11. Why teach critical thinking to language learners?
We need learners to ……….
Question
investigate
Argue
evaluate
analyze
criticize
With & in English

12. When they do that, it’s beyond memorizing
When they do that, it’s beyond memorizing. That means they’re really using their English. So they come to the point of transforming into meaning.
When you critically think in a language, then you come to a level where you can really use the language.

13. Can we teach critical thinking??
Is it an inherited skill? Can it be taught??
It’s a big academic debate between educators, but most of them agree that “yes” we can teach critical thinking.
When pupils are given skills and practise these skills they develop what we call an attitude and a habit of critical thinking, that is, they learn to be skeptical. They don’t accept things as they are. They go and verify and find out for themselves.
then, they ask themselves “ What can we do with information?” “How can we add to it?”
This opens their eyes to the way they should see the world.

14. How to teach critical thinking in class??

15. 1- The first step is allowing them to be problem solvers.
Educators usually solve the problem for pupils.
This leads pupils to grow up looking for authority figures to solve their situations in the future.

16. 2- Pull children aside and create a solving circle where they can work out their issues.
In doing that, you are laying the foundation of people who believe they can take control in situations, can work things out with another person and don’t rely on adults or authority figures to solve things for them.

17. 3- Give them space to work.
Get them in a situation where they can feel comfortable to talk.
Teachers can do that by:
Going down to their level. Grabbing a seat and sitting with them in a circle.
Teachers should work as facilitators not as directors.
Teachers should watch their tone of voice.

18. 4- Always focus on activities that involve critical thinking.
There is a variety of activities that help pupils practice these skills.

19. Critical Thinking Skills
Organizing Skills
Synthesizing
Predicting
Generating Skills
Critical Thinking Skills
Identifying
Inferring
Analyzing
Visualizing
Summarizing
Questioning

20. Visualizing
Visualizing is creating mental images that belong to the student alone. This will allow each student to clarify and make meaning from the text or the audio.

21. Activity For Visualizing ( Drawing pictures as instructed)
Grade 1
Examples:
1- Draw something that is in your face.
2- Draw something that is in your house.
Purpose: Students will show visualizing by drawing pictures that go along with instructions given by the teacher.
Materials: pencils/ A4 blank papers.
Procedures:
1- hand each pupil a paper and a pencil.
2- Give each pupil clear instructions on what to draw ( something that is suitable to their level).
3- Ask each pupil to describe her drawing in her own words.

22. organizing skills ( Classification)
Classification is designed to categorize products that have common characteristics

23. ( Sorting words according to colors)
Activity for classification
( Sorting words according to colors)
grade2
Read the following words and put each word in the circle that matches its color:
Purpose: pupils will show their organizing skills by putting each word in the circle that matches its color.
Frog - apple – banana – tree – sun – lemon - strawberry – date - milk
Materials: a board with scattered words and three circles of three colors.
procedures:
1- asking pupils to identify the colors and to read the words.
2- giving pupils clear instructions. They should write each word under the circle that matches its color. Letting them know that a word can appear in two places.
3- getting each pupil to read the words under each color.

24. Identifying
To know and say who someone is or what something is. Based on pupils previous knowledge and the hints given by the teacher.

25. Grade 3 ( Snack crossword challenge) Activity for identifying
Fill in the crossword using the clues below:
Activity for identifying
( Snack crossword challenge)
chips jam apple
orange cheese salad
bread cornflakes 3 5 1 2 6 8 7 4
Grade 3
Purpose: pupils should read the clue sentences and identify what snack they represent. To fill a crossword.
Materials: work sheets/ pencils
Procedures:
1- Getting pupils to work together to read the sentences and to identify the snacks.
2- pupils fill up the crossword with names of snacks.
3- getting pupils to read the sentences and their answers.
1- It’s a fruit and it has an orange color.
2- It’s sweet. We eat it with bread.
3- It’s made of corn. We mix it with milk.
4- it’s a fruit. It can be red, green or yellow.
5- It’s made of potatoes.
6- It’s made of milk and great for breakfast.
7- we use it to make sandwiches.
8- It’s healthy and it’s made of different vegetables.

26. Generating skills
Using prior knowledge to add new information.

27. Activity on generating skills
( crafting sentences)
Grade 4
Purpose: pupils will generate and compose new sentences and ideas using their prior knowledge of honey making and some words they find in a jar.
Material: jar filled with words that have been cut out of some news paper./ blank papers/ pencils
Procedure:
1- explaining the task to pupils, each pupil has to take two words out of the jar and try to form a sentence about honey making.
2- asking pupils to read their sentences aloud.

28. analyzing
examine in detail in order to discover meaning, essential features, etc.

29. Activity for analyzing ( Telling how two fruits are different)
Grade 4
Activity for analyzing
( Telling how two fruits are different)
Purpose: pupils should examine the fruits and come to conclusions about the similarities and the differences that they find in two fruits in front of them.
Materials: an apple and an orange/ pencils/ blank papers.
Procedures:
1- handing each pupil the two fruits and asking them to write down the similarities and the differences between them.
2- asking pupils to read their answers.
How are they different??!

30. predicting
Predicting means making a guess about what will happen next. Without predicting there can be no comprehension! Students should be able to predict with every content area. This allows them to predict what the outcome of any action will be.

31. Activity for predicting
( open ended story)
Purpose: pupils will predict the plot outcome of a short video.
Materials: papers / pencils
Procedure:
1- have pupils discuss the story they’ve watched together.
2- have pupils write a prediction about the plot of the story on paper.
3- continue playing the rest of the video and have pupils compare their predictions to the actual story.

33. organizinging skills ( Classification)
Classification is designed to categorize products that have common characteristics

34. Activity for classification
( Giving examples)
Purpose: Pupils will show their ability to classify animals and birds by giving examples that categorize animals into groups.
Material: Blank A4 paper/ pencil
Procedure:
1- Explaining the task to pupils, by simply asking the questions.
2- Giving pupils 3 minutes to think and write.
3- Going over their answers.
Name three birds that fly?
Name three animals that eat meat?!

35. Conclusion
By modeling critical thinking skills and encouraging students to do their own critical thinking, we can push comprehension to a whole new level.
We will also begin seeing students create and invent new ideas.