ELT News Think Tank

This Month's Think Tank Panel

Marc Helgesen

Chuck Sandy

Panelists: Marc | Chuck
Date: March 2003
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Topic: "How can I encourage my students to use higher level thinking skills?"

Marc Helgesen

“The secret to finding the answer lies in asking the right question. If you ask the right question, the answer takes care of itself.” - Jeriba Shigan (SF character)

And just maybe those questions can give us direction in helping our learners use their higher processing skills. But what do we really mean by those skills? We can start by looking at the tasks and the texts we give our students.

In most cases, tasks and questions in textbooks call for literal comprehension: Where did the people go? What did they do? My all-time example comes for a previous edition of a well-known government approved high school text. There was a story about Helen Keller, a really powerful person who had a fascinating life. One of the questions following the story: Did Helen sit in the front seat or the back seat of the car? The real answer, of course, is "Who cares?" Literal comprehension: it is nice, clean, concrete -- and virtually guarantees low-level processing.

“How can we expect students to function at a higher level when we don't challenge them to?”

There is a scale for noticing the processing level called, "Barrett's taxonomy of reading comprehension." Although it was originally proposed for reading, I find it useful to keep in mind whenever I am designing activities. It is also useful for looking for ways to modify (read "improve" or even "attempt to salvage") textbook tasks that really don't go anywhere.

Here's the scale.

Barrett's taxonomy of reading comprehension 5. Appreciation (Highest) Students give an emotional or image-based response. 4. Evaluation Students make judgments in light of the material. 3. Inference Students respond to information implied but not directly stated. 2. Reorganization Students organize or order the information in a different way than it was presented. 1. Literal (Lowest) Students identify information directly stated.

Have a look through your textbook. There's a good chance you'll find a very high percentage of questions and tasks that deal with literal comprehension -- the very lowest level. How can we expect students to function at a higher level when we don't challenge them to?

I'll try to share some ideas for doing that.

Literal comprehension
Even though this is the lowest level, I am not suggesting it isn't important. It is. Understanding literal meaning is the first step toward a deeper meaning. Also, for many of our students, tests are or will be very important. Most comprehension tests focus on literal comprehension because it is the easiest to test. That doesn't, however, mean we are locked into the old "read and regurgitate" pattern of teacher questioning.

For example, if the learners have a reading passage and have to find an answer, make copies of the questions and the answer key -- about one copy for each group of five students. One learner in each group becomes "quizmaster." Everyone in the group turns their book face down on their desk. The quizmaster reads the question twice to make sure everyone understands, then says, "Go!" The other students look at their book and scan to find the answer. When they do, they show their partners where the answer is. This is useful since it encourages speed and scanning, two skills that help learners deal with real text and tests.

Reorganization
Jigsaws -- tasks where different students have different information or different parts of the same information -- can be a way of having learners reorganize information. Stories that are cut up or sequences of pictures can be a route in. Those pictures can then be rearranged to have the learners come up with their own stories. At the simplest level, you can write a sequence of events on the board. Write them in the wrong order. Have the students listen to or read a story and determine the sequence.

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Panelists: Marc | Chuck

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