"From the Textbook to Critical Thinking"--A Speech

This afternoon we English teachers listened to a speech by Prof. Pei-Chun Che (車蓓群教授), a professor at National Chengchi University. The topic is "From the Textbook to Critical Thinking (從課本看思考性教學)"

At the beginning of the speech, Ms. Che mentioned the importance of critical thinking. Ms. Che invited us to think how much we can empower our students so that they can think. She proposed lots of brilliant ideas. To respect the speaker's intellectual property rights, here I'll list only five:

1. Make students know that learning is their own responsibility. That's their life. Teachers are just there to help them.

2. When assigning a question for students to think, give them time.

3. Ask genuine questions instead of pseudo/rhetorical quetions.

4. Ask open-ended questions. "Why" is a good word to use.

5. In writing, students need to give specifics, which often come from thinking.

Thank you, Prof. Che, for such a well-organized and enlightening speech. I learned a lot from it and enjoyed it very much.

 

P.S. This entry was written on Dec. 12, 2011, and due to the copyright issue , later modified on Dec. 20, 2011,