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Outline

I. Introduction

II. Critical Thinking
a. What is Critical Thinking
b. How to promote it
c. Importance for EFL students

III. Interaction between Culture and Critical Thinking
a. How is Culture related with Critical Thinking

IV Conclusion


Introduction: Throughout this course we have gone through several aspects of culture and civilization. In order to understand and comprehend the topics and history studied this semester, I found necessary to underline one of its highlights, this is Critical Thinking. Was there another way to get the gist out of Culture and civilization contents? I will, then, explain why it is a must promoting it in every classroom. What’s more, it will be discussed and analyzed culture implications and interferences in the process of developing it.


According to Chance, Critical Thinking is “The ability to analyze facts, generate and organize ideas, defend opinions, make comparisons, draw inferences, evaluate arguments and solve problems”( 1986, p.6). In my opinion, that is an accurate and very close definition of the whole concept and aim of being critical. When learning, it is not only important to know something by heart, like rote learning, but to be an active subject. By this I mean, one needs to question oneself: how? Why? What’s my input in this subject? Is this a reliable source? Etc. So, it is a powerful skill we should all be able to manage. It takes discipline to be efficiently critical, though. That is why we could follow Bloom’s taxonomy of the cognitive domain, if we are ready to undertake the process of developing it in our every day lives.

How is Critical Thinking promoted? Our labour as teachers is not only teaching a second language, unless you mean to teach disconnected chunks of language. If you want to develop and enhance your students` abilities and skills, you should integrate activities for making one’s learning more critical and beneficial at the same time. For instance, when given an activity, students`task will be relating the topic with something from their own daily lives, or something they know. This will help them use knowledge meaningfully, consequently you can ask them to work in groups; you are enhancing collaborative work in which they can compare answers, defend opinions, understanding and respecting different views, and so on.