How can we teach students critical thinking based on the article "The Fifth Skill?" by Richard Harrison on "English Teaching Professional", 109, March 2017

1. Critical Thinking in Classrooms
Based on “The Fifth Skill?”, by Richard Harrison
English Teaching Professional, 109, March 2017
Salah Mhamdi
Ibra Training Center, Ibra, Oman
April 11, 2017

2. What Is Critical Thinking?
Robert Ennis: “reasonable reflective
thinking that is focused on what to
believe or do”
“conscious and voluntary”
“thinking about thinking”

3. What Is It Made Up Of?
Sub-Skills:
• Evaluating
• Judging
• Classifying
• Analyzing
• Reasoning
• Etc.

4. Bloom’s Taxonomy
• Students were good at just low-order thinking
skills:
• Remembering
• Understanding

5. How Is It Manifested?
After analyzing student essays about:
• the disadvantages of skyscrapers
• The dangers of passive smoking
He came up with several flaws

6. • Weak arguments
• Poor logic
• Irrelevant points
• Exaggerated claims
• Lack of evidence and other support for
claims
• Anecdotal evidence
• Lack of balance (weighing evidence)
• Misinterpretation of data

7. How to Develop It?
• Puzzles
• Brainstorming
• Chains of Reasoning
• Fact or Opinion
• Building Strong Arguments
• Thinking Frameworks
• Categorizing and Classifying
• Jumbled Texts