Getting my students to think

Semih* is distracted. He’s finding it hard to focus on the activity I’ve set for the class. I’ve noticed this before with Semih, as well as many of his classmates, especially when he’s working on a lengthy piece of reading like the one we’re doing today. Fair enough, teenagers are going through the metabolic nightmare of their bodies not wanting to sleep until after midnight, coupled with the continuing need for up to ten hours of rest which combine to make 8:40 morning starts less than ideal for intense academic study. Nevertheless, this is the deal that young Semih signed up to.

Is his malaise a symptom of too many late nights and not enough sleep, or is it merely the result of being part of a generation that have what Gavin Dudeney refers to as an extremely low boredom threshold? Whatever it is, I really need Semih and his peers to engage – thinking alert, thinking alert – with the text on a meaningful level, because I know (and so does he, for that matter) that the ideas contained therein may be the topics in his upcoming speaking and writing exams.

There are those who believe that it’s best to view the development of thinking skills as a separate entity which should be addressed in isolation from your regular language teaching. I don’t agree with this for at least the following two reasons. Firstly, I simply don’t have the time to develop such skills separately. Secondly, the materials I use offer too many opportunities for me to not at least try to incorporate thinking skills into pretty much every lesson that I teach.

Of course, this isn’t to say that I don’t have to take a step back sometimes and look at how my lesson planning can incorporate / could have incorporated the different thinking skills that will benefit Semih and my other students. I like to think of lessons as a voyage of discovery, not only for the class as a whole but also for the individuals therein and me as a participant in the experience.

What do they already know?

What do they need me to tell them?

Sue Cowley’s ‘Getting the Buggers to Think’ is a very useful resource to get new ideas on developing thinking skills. She suggests many ways of using the beginning, middle and end of your lessons for such development. Here is a somewhat ‘tefl’ised version of some of her ideas.

Starting out

The start of our lessons presents us teachers with a great opportunity to incorporate thinking skills. Consider the following contrasting situations…

• The teacher presents a range of ‘new’ concepts or ideas to the students at the start of the lesson.
• The teacher opts for a method that requires the students to think for themselves about what they already know about this subject.

Those opening questions at the start of the course book unit that ask you what you can see in the pictures may seem lame, but they are prime candidates for exploitation when it comes to getting the students to think! You may find that you have one or two experts in the class, or that the students have interesting preconceptions about the given topic.

On your way

As I suggested earlier, we’re dealing with people who may have a low boredom threshold, who need things to be broken up into small digestible chunks. This goes for their language lessons just as much as it does for their instant messaging or facebook updating. People commonly remember most from the start and end parts of a period of learning, so consequently by making the middle chunk shorter, the opportunity to retain is increased. Sue Cowley suggests three types of activities for going about this; mental activities, physical activities and spoken activities. All three approaches can easily be employed in the language classroom.

Mental…

A good mental activity could be the vocabulary hot seat, where students are challenged to recall certain information about vocab relevant to the topic in question. This gives the brain a challenge while remaining useful to the overall lesson.

Physical…

A short physical exercise can really help to freshen things up in the class and allow students to return in a more focused frame of mind. I sometimes get my students to spell out a word by writing it in the air with their right hand, then their left, then both hands. This can also be a good way to improve spelling of those tricky vocab items that always cause problems.

Spoken…

Don’t underestimate the value of a quick burst of focused speaking after that grammar gap fill. The change of focus can really raise energy levels and get them thinking about things.

Finishing off

One great suggestion Sue makes that I truly advocate is that of a plenary at the end of a period of learning to draw the whole class together and review what has been covered. This activity will encourage your students to not only review what they’ve learned but also to evaluate the material itself and how they’ve gone about their learning. Here are a few simple questions / prompts which I often use that can help to ignite the discussion:

• ‘Tell me something new that you learned today.’
• ‘What did you like about this subject?’
• ‘How did you perform on the tasks I set you?’
• ‘What could you have done better?’
• ‘Think of an appropriate homework task / task to do next time we meet.’

Reviewing the things that I’ve mentioned here will (hopefully) help me get Semih back on track and give him some help in evaluating what he’s getting out of our classes. I’d be very happy to hear any more suggestions you might have.

* I’ve taught several Semihs this year and the one mentioned is really an amalgamation of what I’ve seen in many of my students this year, rather than referring to one particular individual.

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