reflection+on+teaching+young+learners+to+think+by+Barış+ERGÜN

** BY BARIŞ ERGÜN ** I watched Marion William’s session in the 46th Annual International IATEFL Conference&Exhibition online. In this session, Marion William touched on teaching young learners to think. In her presentation, she covered some important factors related to teaching thinking and applied some beneficial activities to the participants to show examples of teaching thinking skills. Say “You can think” when they say I can’t do. Marion William said this sentence in her session. They can do if they think. In classrooms, we should guide our learners to think. We should not focus on right answers. Instead of the right answers, we should focus more on the best solutions. Thinking and finding the best appropriate answer is more important than the right answer. As teachers, we should lead our learners to look logically and imaginatively. Thinking can be taught. In my opinion, thinking can be taught by scaffolding and guiding. Thinking is important. If we teach learners to think, they can engage in task cognitively. However; there should be real purpose and meaningful activities should be applied. Nothing should be meaningless. We should focus on educating not just the language but the whole person. Our activities should also be appropriate for any age. We should consider these factors while teaching thinking to our learners. In her session, she talked about some thinking programmes such as “Instrumental Enrichment”, “Somerset Thinking Skills Course”, “Philosophy for Children”, “Thinking Maps”. In these programmes, some cognitive areas are given importance and bridging is also gain importance. Linking up the things with real world is important for learners and mediation by teacher helps learners in thinking process. She touched on the elements that are involved in thinking process. Cognitive resources like concepts, skills, knowledge and language are not enough for thinking. Cognitive strategies like control process, selection and coordination of resources gain importance. This is like a football game. Players know the skills required for football; however, combination of these skills is important for good play. She applied some activities to the participants to show some examples of teaching thinking to young learners. In the first activity, she wanted participants to solve a problem in their worksheets. The participants argued with their partners after they solved the problem. Marion William applied this activity to show each participant developed different strategy. In our classrooms, we should let our learners to develop different strategies. We should mediate their thinking and we should lead them to take part in their own learning process. In my opinion, teacher should move away from the center of the process and learners take part by thinking. Problem solving cycle is also important. Gathering and organizing information, defining the problem, generating approaches to solving it, planning action, monitoring, checking, evaluating, communicating solutions, transferring are the components of problem cycle. We should not be quick. We are required to give time learners to think on the problem. After problem solving cycle, she mentioned about 13 cognitive areas. Comparisons, categorizing, sequencing, focusing attention, memorizing, exploring space, exploring time, exploring numbers, creating associations, cause and effect, making decisions, solving problems, creative thinking are 13 cognitive areas she mentioned in her session. She chose one of these areas and applied an activity with the participants. She chose “creative thinking” and asked participants to crate 10 ways to use paperclip. She waited for participants to create some ways. In my opinion, we can use such kind of activities to increase creative thinking of young learners in classes. After we give them required time, we may want them to share their ideas with the whole class. She touched on “comparisons” in her session, too. Comparison of what they got before and what they learn new is important. She showed an activity example related to “comparisons” to the participants. In a chart, learners are required to write some common points of orange and apple. Apart from common points, they are required to write special properties of orange and apple. This activity can easily be applied to young learners. This activity can also be developed and applied to adult learners by changing orange and apple with hate and love or school and factory. Minus and plus is another topic that she gave importance in her presentation. Learners should take part in learning process as much as possible to my opinion. They should take part in the decision-making process. Thus, they should indicate advantages and disadvantages at first and then they should choose a line of action. As a result, Marion William focused on teaching thinking in her presentation. She emphasized these points for teachers:
 * REFLECTION ON THE CONFERENCE “TEACHING YOUNG LEARNERS TO THINK” **
 * Children should be free to think without criticism
 * Teacher should encourage creativity
 * All ideas of learners are valued
 * Take time: encourage a careful, systematic approach (not quick hands-up)
 * Listen; take all suggestions seriously
 * Encourage the students to listen to each other
 * Ask challenging questions; How do you know this? How did you work this out? Develop the habit of backing up suggestions with reasons.
 * Seek best answers, not always right answers.
 * Model and scaffold the thinking process. What information do we have? What do we need to do? What shall we do first? ....
 * Develop feelings of I can.

I totally agree with Marion William’s point of view in teaching thinking to young learners. We should guide our learners at that age to think critically and make their own decision and help them to lead their own learning. As teachers we cannot help them forever; however, they can always help themselves. We should teach our learners that awareness.


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