This document outlines a proposal for developing critical thinking skills in the classroom. It begins with an overview of the plan, which includes doing a KWL chart, reviewing definitions of critical thinking, exploring a proposal, and getting ideas. It then reviews two definitions of critical thinking as evaluating and using information effectively, and reflecting on, arguing about, and proposing solutions. The document proposes using riddles, nursery rhymes, puns, funny anagrams, jokes, and oxymorons as ways to develop critical thinking and provides examples of each. It concludes that critical thinking takes time to develop and involves considering issues from multiple perspectives and assumptions.

1. SOME CRITICAL JOB
TO DO….
Monik Vinueza
Universidad Técnica del
Norte
2015

2. THIS IS THE PLAN…
1. Do the KWL chart
2. Review a definition of
critical thinking
3. Explore the proposal
4. Get some ideas

3. WHAT DO YOU KNOW….?
What is critical thinking?
How can we develop in class?
Can it be done?
Results?

4. TWO DEFINITIONS…
 Beyer (1985) ability to gather, evaluate and use
information effectively.
 It involves thinking skills: judging, posing and solving
problems
 Smith (1990) reflecting , arguing, and propoing
different alternatives of solution
 It means … not taking everything for granted……
 Open your eyes
 Develop skills
 Activate your curiosity, motivation and mental skills

5. THE PROPOSAL…..

6. SOME DEFINITIONS…..
 Riddles
 Nursery rhymes
 Puns
 Funny anagrams
 Jokes
 Oxymorons

7. A riddle is a statement or questionor phrase having a double
or veiled meaning, put forth as a puzzle to be solved.
Examples:
1. Which month has 28 days?
All of them of course!
2. What five-letter word becomes shorter when you add two letters to it?
Short

8. MORE RIDDLES……
1. What word begins and ends
with an ‘e’ but only has one
letter?
2. What has a neck but no head?
3. What gets wetter as it dries?

9. 4. Why did the boy bury his flashlight?
5. Which letter of the alphabet has the most water?
6. What starts with a ‘P’, ends with an ‘E’ and has thousands of letters?
7. What has to be broken before you can use it?

10. ANSWERS… TO THE RIDDLES
1. Envelope
2. A bottle
3. A towel
4. Because the batteries died.
5. The C
6. The Post Office!
7. An egg

11. Nursery rhymes
 Short rhyming poems (18th century).
 Tell stories with unusual and implausible plots.
 Promote literacy skills which include oral language development,
phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency comprehension and
vocabulary.

12. HERE IS AN EXAMPLE….
 What might be all the ways to keep Humpty
Dumpty from falling off the wall?
 In what ways might the King’s men put
Humpty Dumpty back together again?
 How might the King’s men reach Humpty
Dumpty before he falls?
 How might you prevent Humpty Dumpty’s
shell from breaking?
 How might you lessen the damage of
Humpty Dumpty’s fall?
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall;
Humpty Dumpty had a great
fall.
All the King’s horses
And all the King’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty together
again!

14. OTHER NURSERY RHYMES
Little Miss Muffet
Little Miss Muffet sat on a tuffet
Eating her curds and whey,
Along came a spider,
Who sat down beside her
And frightened Miss Muffet
away.

15. Old King Cole was a merry old soul, and a
merry old soul was he;
He called for his pipe in the middle of the night
And he called for his fiddlers three.
Every fiddler had a fine fiddle, and a very fine
fiddle had he;
Oh there's none so rare as can compare
With King Cole and his fiddlers three.
http://www.rhymes.org.uk/old_king_cole.htm

16. PUNS…
 A form of word play which take advantage of words,
or similar sounding words, with multiple meanings,
often to create a humorous situation or joke.
 Puns can sometimes be created unintentionally, in
which case the saying ‘no pun intended’ is used.
 For example:
 Let’s talk about rights and lefts. You’re right, so I left.
http://www.funnyjunk.com/

17. EXAMPLES…
1. When a clock is hungry it goes back four
seconds.
2. Without geometry, life is pointless
3. Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a
banana.
4. She had a photographic memory but
never developed it.
5. Two antennas met on a roof, fell in love
and got married. The ceremony wasn't much,
but the reception was brilliant!

18. What is a pun?
Why is this a pun?
What is a spelling bee?
How can you develop
critical thinking through it?

19. How can you use this pun
in class?
What are the possible
questions that can be
formulated?
Are images important?

20. FUNNY ANAGRAMS
A word, name or phrase formed by
rearranging the letters of another,
using each original letter only once.
The best anagrams manage to link
the new word, name or phrase to
the original one in some way, such
as when ‘listen’ becomes ‘silent’
or
‘Elvis’ becomes ‘lives’.

21. EXAMPLES…
1. A gentleman =
Elegant man
2. Eleven plus two =
Twelve plus one
3. Hot water =
Worth tea

23. WHAT ABOUT SOME JOKES???

25. (1)"I am not surprised," replied the
weary salesman,
(2) A man went to a shoe-shop to buy
shoes.
(3) Finally, he was satisfied.
(4) He put many pairs on his feet.
(5) "They are your own shoes.“
(6) "At last," he said, "I have found a pair of shoes
that fit me."
SOME JOKES????

26. Elementary:
Why didn't the skeleton go to the
party?
Because he had no-body to go
with!
Intermediate:
How do you count a herd of
cattle?
With a cowculator.

27. This is a story about four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody and
Nobody.
There was an important job to be done and Everybody was sure that
Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it.
Somebody got angry about that, because it was Everybody's job. Everybody
thought that Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody
wouldn't do it.
It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what
Anybody could have done.

29. Advanced
(1)
What did the mayonnaise say
to the fridge?
Close the door please. I'm
dressing.
(2)
What's round and dangerous?
A vicious circle!
(3)
A: Shall I tell you a secret about
butter?
B: You'd better not. I might
spread it.

30. BIBLIOGRAPHY.
 Using Nursery Rhymes to Boost Your/Your Child’s Creative IQ
http://alicia-arnold.com/2011/03/30/using-nursery-rhymes-to-boost-
your-childs-creative-iq/
 /www.google.com.ec/
 http://philosophy.hku.hk/think/logic/puzzles.php
 https://www.englishclub.com
 http://www.onestopenglish.com/community/lesson-
share/extras/teenagers/teenagers-lateral-thinking/145220.article
 https://neltachoutari.wordpress.c
http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Kabilan-CriticalThinking.html
om/2011/11/01/critical-thinking-in-esl-classrooms/

31. CRITICAL THINKING…FACTS TO
CONSIDER..
 Critical thinking, like many other
phenomena, has been defined variously
by many scholars.
 Critical thinking, a hard-to-define
concept, has philosophical and
psychological roots (Lewis & Smith, 1993).
 Critical thinking refers to a type of lateral
thinking that enables individuals to
analyze and evaluate information about a
situation or phenomenon or a problem
and to make appropriate decisions that
befit in their contexts.
 The third approach to critical thinking is
within the field of education (Sternberg,
1986).
 Critical thinking is not an easy concept to
define as it can mean quite different
things to different people in different
contexts and cultures.
 It takes time to develop
 Generally speaking, to think critically
about an issue is to consider that issue
from various perspectives, to look at and
challenge any possible assumptions that
may underlie the issue and to explore its
possible alternatives.

32. TO SUM UP..
 Critical thinking in EFL teaching…..
 Based on the study of King (1995) and Taba (1966), the level of
students’ thinking is strongly influenced by the level of questions
which are asked in class.
 According to the study of Paul and Elder (2001), critical thinking
can be defined as a mode of thinking about any subject,
content, or problem.
 “Critical thinking includes the component skills of analyzing
arguments, making inferences using inductive or deductive
reasoning, judging or evaluating, and making decisions or solving
problems”

33. monikvinuezam@yahoo.com