There are some common myths related to critical thinking and assessment. Many people believe that it¡¯s impossible to assess critical thinking, especially in classes where language is limited. However, it can be done! Here, the key to success is crafting tasks and rubrics that allow you to separate language skills and cognitive skills. After all, a low language level doesn¡¯t necessarily reflect your student¡¯s ability to think critically.
So, how can we measure how a student knows rather than just what they know?
Well, we first have to consider two types of assessment¡ªformal and informal. Formal assessments tend to happen at the end of a task, lesson or skill-building activity and usually focus on the work the student has produced. Then, we have informal assessments. Those are the assessments that involve on-the-spot interactions. These types of assessments play a crucial role in measuring critical thinking.
Play
There is a common misconception that assessment should only focus on the final work that your students produce. The final ¡®product¡¯ is undeniably important and often an ideal measure of linguistic abilities. But the process of producing the final work is where you can see your students¡¯ critical thinking skills in action.
When designing rubrics to measure both language and critical thinking, make sure that you only focus on one at a time¡ªeither language or critical thinking. Keeping these different skills in mind will help you to differentiate language skills and critical thinking skills, and evaluate them separately, when it comes to formal assessment.
When measuring language skills, use Bloom¡¯s early or foundational cognitive domains as a model:
If we measure these items, we are really measuring language skills. For example, with a reading activity, we might ask the following questions:
Can they understand the overall organization and the key vocabulary? These types of questions assess a student¡¯s linguistic ability.
Then, when it comes to critical thinking, the more advanced levels of Bloom¡¯s cognitive domains provide a useful guide:
These types of questions assess a student¡¯s metacognition or critical thinking:
The clear separation of language and critical thinking in assessment will help you to get a measure of each student¡¯s progress in both skills.
What about those informal assessments? It can be harder to delineate critical thinking and language skills clearly in an on-the-spot assessment.
For example, if you¡¯ve assigned group work, consider keeping a checklist of how students interact with one another. Some checklist items can be:
You can also ask your students to keep a checklist and post these questions on an electronic bulletin board. Like self-assessment, these peer-to-peer assessments can get students reflecting and noticing.
Rubrics can also be useful in informal assessment. Let¡¯s say you¡¯ve asked students to prepare or write an essay. To measure critical thinking, you can look at each student¡¯s ideation process when they¡¯ve been working on their essays:
The answers to these questions will tell you whether or not your students are thinking critically.
Just like with any other skills, the assessment of critical thinking needs to happen both formally and informally. We need to consider both the process and the final product. And in doing so, we need to carefully design rubrics that differentiate language skills and metacognition.
Around 20%?of the , making it an integral component in global business operations. But the question remains for business leaders and HR professionals: how can language learning, specifically, business English courses, drive your organization forward??Here are 8 ways language training can impact your business.
Stories can make us laugh, cry or tremble with fear. They can teach us valuable life lessons and transport us to other worlds. They've been around since the beginning of language itself, but can they actually help us learn a language?
Stories are one of the most useful tools?when teaching children?English. Not only do they help with listening and reading skills, but they can also support speaking and writing skills by providing context, language and structure.?
Very young learners may already be familiar with stories ¨C they may hear them in daycare, school or at home with their parents. Therefore, incorporating these into their language classes may help them to feel more comfortable in their surroundings. And if children feel comfortable, they are more likely to be receptive to learning.?
Storytelling usually happens as part of a group in the classroom. This means that it becomes a bonding activity for children where they can communicate and subconsciously pick up the key language. While having fun listening and interacting with the story, they?soak up information without even realizing they¡¯re learning.
So, what storytelling activities can we use with young?learners? Let¡¯s find out.?
Often, we think of storytelling simply as reading a book aloud to children. Yet, there are other activities you can do. These include:
To get young children interacting with the story, first read out a sentence alone. Then, have the children repeat the line with you as a group. Repeat as many times as necessary, until the children feel confident with the language.?
If your learners are happy to, ask them individually to repeat the sentence after you. Make sure each one has a turn and praise them for being brave and trying to use the language.?
An activity that works well with children is to act out the story¡¯s characters. For example, there may be animals, fairies, monsters or other exciting characters that they can each act.?
Ask them to make the noises of the animals, the wind, or the scenery to create an atmosphere while you read. This gets them interacting with the story and the rest of the group, which will help their communication and listening comprehension skills.?
Young learners react particularly well to visual aids and realia. Why not use puppets or dolls to act out the characters, or even ask students to have a go with them? They will engage more with the story and the language.??
Children¡¯s story books are usually quite visual with illustrations and pictures. Make the most of these while telling the story. Try asking students questions about the images to get them using the vocabulary.?
You could ask them, ¡°what can you see?¡±, ¡°what¡¯s he wearing?¡± or ¡°can you find an apple?¡±. This is another great way to reinforce the vocabulary they¡¯re learning in class.?
Use these activities individually or?incorporate a mix into your lessons. Either way, storytelling will help your learners with more than just developing their English language skills.?
While we often think of storytelling as a pastime for children, it can also be a useful language learning activity for adults.?
Stories are part of our daily lives, from news to social media to books and movies. Therefore, they can be extremely beneficial tools for English language learning.?
Yet, the way we approach storytelling as a class activity for adults differs to that of young learners. While we typically read fairy tales to young children, we can bring in a much wider range of content for adults, such as:
Storytelling can be a wonderful language learning tool for both children and adults. If you¡¯re looking for a new way to engage, inspire and motivate your learners, why not try it in your next class??
Language learning is more than just something you study¡ªit's a strategic move that integrates into every aspect of your life¡ªsocially, professionally and mentally. With English often being the common ground for global business, communicating effectively in this language has never been more important.
In this post, we uncover the benefits of language proficiency, particularly in English, backed by relevant statistics and insights from ÃÛÌÒapp's recent?ground-breaking new research.
