CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS
Salihova Sulushash Kurmashovna
Kazakh
state women’s teacher training university
English
language teacher
It is impossible to talk about a full-fledged
professionally oriented process of teaching a foreign language unless we include
activities that contribute to the development of social skills, such as
tolerance to others' opinions, cooperation, activity planning and evaluation,
decision-making, interpersonal teamwork, Opinions of others. Сritical thinking is
included in such skills, too.
In our opinion, in the professionally oriented process
of teaching a foreign language, it's time for some shift in emphasis between
the development of general cultural competencies and language training in favor
of general cultural competences, of which social skills play an important role.
In front of the teacher of a foreign language, the task of teaching certain
language material and developing speech skills, that is, practical tasks, has
always been a priority. Developmental and educational tasks were carried out as
if in the course of carrying out the practical tasks of teaching the language.
However, today in the system of higher education, employers and experts in the
field of education note a significant gap between the high level of knowledge
and awareness of graduates of universities and the completely inadequate level
of development of their social skills.
Thus, with obvious clarity, there is a need for a
slightly different alignment of priorities, that is, the teacher's attention
needs to be shifted and focused on the development of social skills of
students. To do this is all the more necessary because the process of shifting
accents is also taking place on a broader scale, namely, in terms of understanding
education as such. To the fore in the understanding of education, such
characteristics as "the ability to communicate, study, analyze, project, choose
and create" move [1].
In this article, we consider critical thinking as a
social skill, the formation and development of which becomes the practical goal
of the teacher's activity in the practice of a foreign language, during which
the student learns a foreign language.
Using the interpretation of the word
"critical" [2], we would define critical thinking as the skill of
analyzing information analytically, forming a multilateral judgment about it
and its balanced assessment. Thus, critical thinking can be seen as the skill
of considering one event from different sides, providing alternative points of
view leading to overcoming the simplistic approach in judgments, their
subjectivity, limitations, bias and as a result of achieving a more objective
assessment of events.
The use of critical thinking in the process of
teaching a foreign language is aimed at developing the ability to look at
consumed or produced information, overcoming the one-sidedness in its
perception and the bipolarity of evaluations of the type
"true-wrong", "right-wrong", "good-bad", etc.
Effective means with which the teacher can realize the
set goal are problem-searching and design technologies in such forms as a round
table, a discussion, a project, a presentation and some others. These are technologies,
in our opinion, that can be regarded as sufficiently productive in the development
of critical thinking among students.
The skill of critical thinking, like any other, is
formed in activity. We would single out three important activities, which we
named according to the content of the work contained in them. This is the
cognitive, informational and social-personal activity of the student in working
with information.
In information activities, we consider actions related
to the process of gathering information, determining the objectivity or bias of
its source, as well as gathering positions and opinions as important actions.
At this stage, work with information is conducted without disclosing arguments
in defense of a particular position. Students form a kind of review of the read
text information, which presents an introduction of the problem of a particular
phenomenon, its relevance and versatility. Students at this stage of working
with information try to present in a wide variety of forms a wide range of
existing questions and opinions.
In the process of cognitive activity, students'
actions are associated with analytical-critical processing of information. They
distinguish, compare and evaluate the argumentation, compare facts and
judgments, evaluate examples and other illustrative material, analyze and
prioritize, compare the validity of the criteria, and so on.
In the socio-personal activity, actions aimed at
studying someone else's opinion in the immediate real environment of the
student, relating someone else's statement to their experience and knowledge
and forming their own point of view come to the forefront.
Mastery of linguistic material and training of speech
skills are carried out in the process of development of critical thinking. So
in the process of information activity, students, reading material on a
particular problem, get acquainted with the vocabulary and make a glossary,
both on this issue and communicative acts, for example, lexical units used to
express opinion, consent or disagreement, etc. . Moreover, students can take
part in oral discussions on choosing the most interesting or unusual problem
for the round table, writing an essay with the rationale for their choice.
Reference
1.
Kalney
V.A., Shishov
S.Y., Buchteeva
E.E. Управление качеством
образовательного процесса: монография. [Quality Management in Education: monograph]. Moscow,
Logos, 2015. 271 p.
2. Collins English Dictionary. HarperCollins
Publishers, 2001. 924 p.
3. Cobzeva N. А., Kuimov М. В. Forming
of critical thinking skills by means of creative activities at foreign language
classes — 2011. — №2. Т.2. — 92-94 pp.