Encouraging our Students to Think through Problem Solving

1. Encouraging our Students to Think through Problem Solving

2. Encouraging our Students to Think • “The aim of education should be to teach us how to think, rather than what to think” John Dewey

3. Why bother? • When Ss have to consider problems, they work together • When Ss have to analyse and evaluate, they develop real life skills • When Ss have to present an argument, they have to think about a variety of factors, including what language to use • When Ss have to reach a definite solution, they have a goal, a target

4. Encouraging our Students to Think • Logic vs. Imagination

5. How? • Using imagination • Using logic • Using a mixture of imagination and logic • Using organizational skills • Using negotiation skills • Using a variety of different linguistic functions • Using competitiveness

6. Task 1 • Ayad lives on the 4th floor of a block of flats. Everyday, he goes downstairs at 7.30, takes the bus from the end of the street and gets to the tall building where he works at 8.00. When the weather is fine, he gets the lift to the 9th floor, gets out there and walks up to the twelfth floor, which is where his office is. He starts work at around 8.15. When the weather is bad he takes the lift right up to the 12th floor and gets out there and goes straight to his desk. He works until 5.00 in the evening and then he returns to his flat.

7. Task 2 • At a recent birthday party there were four mothers and their children. aged 1, 2, 3 and 4. From the clues below can you work out whose child is whose and their relevant ages? It was Jane's child's birthday party. Brian is not the oldest child. Sarah had Anne just over a year ago. Laura's child will be 3 next birthday. Daniel is older than Charlie. Teresa's child is the oldest. Charlie is older than Laura's child. http://www.brainbashers.com/logic.asp

8. Who’s staying in? • The Farmer • The Doctor • The Lawyer • The Teacher • The Vet • The Company Director • The Architect • The Politician

9. Encouraging our Students to Think Who’s Going to Get the Scholarship? • Edward Mbaka: 24, was in the army and saw active service/highly motivated/wants to go into politics/was found guilty of accepting bribes in the army/charming/ fluent and eloquent speaker/a citizen of this country, but retains nationality of his birth state in Africa to where he wants, eventually, to return.

10. Creating Together • silence sent never took me restaurants said what we in was love met I spoke wrote parks remember most but he of letters anyway don’t flowers in how it

11. He never sent me flowers. He never wrote me letters. He never took me to restaurants. He never spoke of love. We met in parks. I don’t remember what he said, but I remember how he said it. Most of it was silence anyway. A Love Poem

12. Murder!

13. Presenting Two Arguments • “Course books should be based more on useful, functional language through fluency activities, rather than on the learning of formal grammar”

14. Presenting Two Arguments • “The environment doesn’t really matter; it’ll look after itself. It always has before”