Provoking Thought: Memory and Thinking in ELT
Authored by Hall Houston
This book, Provoking Thought, is a resource book of activities for the language classroom. The activities are designed for an ESL/EFL context,
but they can also be adapted for teaching other languages.
The five chapters of this book cover five areas: thinking, memory, creativity, critical thinking, and expressing thought in writing. These areas can enhance language learning, impelling students to develop greater fluency. This book is ideal for teachers who want to help students improve their English as well as develop thinking skills that can be useful in everyday life.
Aims of this book
Hall says, “One aim of this book is to create a learner-centered atmosphere. These activities encourage students to share their thoughts, feelings, ideas, and opinions. This can make learning English more personalized and therefore more motivating than following a coursebook written for a mass audience which may not appeal to your students.
However, many activities in this book can be used in combination with a coursebook.
Another aim is to emphasize real topics and ideas, not grammatical structures and sentence patterns. The activities contained in this book will take students away from rote learning towards meaningful learning which can help increase the rate at which students improve.
Still another aim is to help develop academic skills. You can use some of the activities in this book to help students produce their own ideas, create sound arguments for a position, participate in debates and discussions, and write academic papers”.
OVERVIEW OF CHAPTERS
Here’s a summary of what you will find in this book:
Chapter One, Thinking, covers the topic of thinking. It includes activities such as lateral thinking puzzles and riddles, which involve asking students to speculate and guess. Other activities focus on our everyday thinking patterns. Use activities from this chapter as a starting point for activities from other chapters in this book.
Chapter Two, Memory, is about how we learn and remember. While memory is not thought of as a skill in the way that creative thinking and critical thinking are, several memory techniques, such as the story method, can be extremely beneficial in helping students consolidate what they’ve learned. This chapter contains numerous practical suggestions for helping students remember new language and review vocabulary from previous lessons. Using the activities in this chapter, students also will learn some effective ways to remember names, talk about their own memories and discuss some common memory problems.
Chapter Three, Creativity, emphasizes motivating students to generate new and interesting thoughts. Creativity is a skill that writers, advertisers, artists, businesspeople and musicians strive to develop. In order to be creative, it’s important to suspend judgment and be open to looking at things from new perspectives. With the activities in this chapter, students can develop their creativity through idea generation and problem solving. You might use these activities for fluency practice or as a way to help students come up with ideas for a project or writing assignment.
Chapter Four, Critical Thinking, is about getting students to judge their own ideas, as well as the ideas of others. Critical thinking courses teach valuable skills including how to structure an argument, how to find support for your arguments, and how to spot logical fallacies.
Using the activities in this chapter, students can learn how to develop their critical thinking skills as they read news articles and advertisements. In addition, they can learn to examine arguments skillfully.
Chapter Five, Organizing Ideas on Paper, contains a variety of ways for students to express their thoughts in writing. These include graphic organizers, which are useful in reading classes. The chapter also contains some creative projects and ways of getting feedback from students.
Another feature of this book is a series of interviews with experts on memory, creativity, and critical thinking. These interviews show how these three topics intersect with education and share expert information on these subjects for teachers who would like to learn more.
At the back of the book, you will find an index where you can see activities organized according to type. This can save time when looking for a particular type of activity to use in class.
READERS’ VOICES
This book is a very useful tool for esl teachers. It is full of fun and practical methods for engaging esl students. It’s obvious that the author is an actual teacher and knows what is needed when facing the classroom each day. – JBiker
Houston`s work is a valueble guide for teachers wishing to deepen their perspectives on cognitive processes in the classroom. Full of practical knowledge based on a life time`s experience in teaching. A must -read for any aspirant teacher embarking on an overseas career. – David Bennette
An original, practical and very useful collection of activities. – Lindsay Clandfield
A terrific addition to classroom life and language learning! This book will make us better teachers, and make learning more meaningful. – Dr. Natalie Hess.
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