Encouraging Critical Thinking in the Classroom

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Encouraging Cr itical Thinking in the Classroom

The use of the Socratic Method in ELT

By Jeremy Wysakowski-Walters BSc, MA

1. 

Introduction 

Teaching as a skill goes back many years, with the first academy being set up by Plato in 387 BC

in Athens1. However, for much of the next two millennia little study was done as to how people

actually learn. In the early twentieth century, John Dewey became famous for theories on

 pragmatism2:

(…) a view that rejected the dualistic epistemology and metaphysics of modern philosophy in favor of a

naturalistic approach that viewed knowledge as arising from an active adaptation of the human organism to

its environment. On this view, inquiry should not be understood as consisting of a mind passively observing

the world and drawing from this ideas that if true correspond to reality, but rather as a process which initiates

with a check or obstacle to successful human action, proceeds to active manipulation of the environment totest hypotheses, and issues in a re-adaptation of organism to environment that allows once again for human

action to proceed.

Dewey was instrumental in changing the educative process and encouraging the idea that

learning should be an active process placed in a practical context. John Dewey unfortunately

died in 1952, four years before Benjamin Bloom created his famous Taxonomy of Learning

Domains3. In his taxonomy Bloom and his colleagues “identified three domains of

educational activities or  learning”  (Bloom, et al. 1956):

Cognitive: mental skills (knowledge)

Affective: growth in feelings or emotional areas (attitude or self )

Psychomotor : manual or physical skills ( sk il ls )

Most famously Bloom created a taxonomy of learning. This broke learning into various

 processes: some passive and some active.

1 See http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Societies/Plato.html

2 See http://www.iep.utm.edu/dewey/

3 See http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/bloom.html

http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/learning/learning.htmlhttp://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/learning/learning.html

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`  

Chart 1 Bloom’s Taxonomy4 

Following on from this, the America Educationalist Edgar Dale developed his Cone ofLearning

5:

Chart 2 Dale’s Cone of learning 

4 See http://www.learningtech.co.nz/blooms-taxonomy/

5 See http://www.percepsys.com/images/percepsys_simstudio.pdf

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From Dale’s Cone we can see that speaking and doing form the major part of memory retention.

We remember up to 90% of what we say and do. It is well recognised within English Language

Teaching (ELT) that there are different types of learners: visual, auditory,kinesthetic6 etc;

however, often this is not effectively utilised across the whole learning spectrum. As teachers,

we may understand that some of our students respond better to listening exercises whilst others

respond to activities where they have to get up out of their chair and find a partner or piece of

information in the room, yet we often don’t employ this across all our lessons.

To summarise the above, a system of ensuring learners employ active learning strategies needs to

 be employed where students participate in the learning process as much as the teacher and thus

retain up to 90% of the information.

2.  Socratic Method

The Socratic Method, although named after Socrates comes to us through the writings of his

student Plato. Socrates himself didn’t believe in wr iting things down. For him knowledge diedonce it hit paper. He believed that dialogue, question and answer, is the only true form of inquiry

and thus learning.

Through rigorous questions he would analyse the very basis of assumptions. This inevitably led

him to undermining the very beliefs of his Athenian society and famously let to his trial and

death.

However, for us, the Socratic Method enables us to allow students to explore and discover

language. Through the guidance of the teacher the students will arrive at an answer with a sense

of achievement. Not only are they employing active learning (as in Dale’s Cone) but they are

also becoming owners of the learning process with a fully enfranchised role.

2.1 The method in detail

When applied to ELT the Socratic Method involves using opening questions to stimulate thought

about a topic prior to a review of any source material. All supplementary questions should then

aim at guiding the learner towards the correct conclusion. Although the method can be applied to

all language skills I have focused here on developing reading skills.

The method has been successfully employed by myself at King Khalid University, Mahala

Campus, KSA during the academic year 2014-15.

6 See http://www.learningrx.com/types-of-learning-styles-faq.html

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The Socratic Method is made of four key components7:

•  the text

•  the question

•  the leader

•  the participants

A text should be chosen which is closely connected to the overall goals of the subject, unit, and the

classroom. The starting question to encourage the dialogue should be well-planned, and resemble an

authentic thought-provoking inquiry. The next chief constituent in Socratic instruction is typically the

teacher, who not only guides the discourse, but also takes an active part in it. The most important element is

the participants which are primarily the students but also include the teacher 8.

The teacher’s role is to facilitate exploration and as such they can take a somewhat backseat role

 by allowing statements to lead discussions if pertinent. Whilst doing this however, the teacher

must ensure the lesson remains on topic and reaches its learning goal.

2.2 The Socratic Method in practice

I will focus here on a reading lesson involving the book “Medicine” published by Oxford

University Press. However, as stated above this method could be used to teach any skill. Through

the use of different types of questions the lesson will start by encouraging free thought on the

subject matter (See Chart 3). The students’ prior knowledge of the subject material will be drawn

out and thoughts about the topic will be encouraged.

After this a controlled review of the Reading Text will be done. Here vocabulary will be

explored in context and the students’ own definitions will be sought. Completely new words will

 be explained in context and using metaphors. No dictionary definitions will be given as this

 prohibits active learning.

 Next, a review of the initial thought (?) will be done. Points raised during step one will be

analysed to see if anything has changed in the class’s understanding.

The fifth step is an in-depth review of the material. Here understanding is built up from sentence

to paragraph and then paragraph to complete text. This inevitably affects the initial premises held

 by the students and a re-evaluation is carried out of their ideas.

7 See

https://www.academia.edu/545510/Socratic_Method_Dialectic_and_Its_Use_in_Teaching_Culture_in_EFL_Classr

ooms8Seehttps://www.academia.edu/545510/Socratic_Method_Dialectic_and_Its_Use_in_Teaching_Culture_in_EFL_Cl

assrooms

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Finally, the students produce their own material either in spoken form or written. Paragraph

summaries can be done to check understanding and then new material can be produced to apply

the lessons learn to a new context.

Chart 3 Socratic lesson flow (Own work)

3.  Conclusion

The Socratic Method, when applied in the ELT classroom, ensures that student retention of

information is between 70 and 90% in line with the Active Learning section of Dale’s Cone of

learning.

This and similar methods are crucial in developing a true learning environment where knowledge

 production involves reflection.

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References and Further Reading

See http://oupeltglobalblog.com/2013/03/07/critical-thinking-in-the-elt-classroom/

See http://www.cambridge.org/elt/blog/2014/04/teaching-critical-thinking-using-blooms-

taxonomy/

See http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/asking-questions

See http://ed.fnal.gov/trc_new/tutorial/taxonomy.html

See http://www.criticalthinking.org/TGS_files/SocraticQuestioning2006.pdf

See http://esol.britishcouncil.org/content/teachers/staff-room/teaching-articles/asking-questions

See http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Societies/Plato.html

See http://www.iep.utm.edu/dewey/ 

See http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/bloom.html 

See http://www.learningtech.co.nz/blooms-taxonomy/ 

See http://www.percepsys.com/images/percepsys_simstudio.pdf

Bloom, B.S. (Ed.). Engelhart, M.D., Furst, E.J., Hill, W.H., Krathwohl, D.R.

(1956).Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, Handbook I  : The Cognitive Domain. New

York: David McKay Co Inc.