SEEU Review vol. 6 Nr. 2 (pdf) - South East European University

Elena Spirovska, MSc.; Hajrulla Hajrullai; Luiza Zeqiri, MA.; Serdal Xhemali; VeronikaKareva, MSc.; Artan Limani, MA.According to Moore and Parker (1986) in Kabilan (2000), criticallanguage learners, should be able to carefully and deliberately determine toaccept, reject or suspend judgment about a claim. Language learners who aresuccessful critical thinkers should be able to formulate reasons for theiropinions. What is needed to develop these skills in the classroom? Recentresearch suggests that teachers should create a classroom environment whichprovides conditions to develop a capacity for informed judgments (Brown,1984 and Hayes & Alvermann, 1986). Furthermore, Kabilan suggestsFreire’s problem-posing methodology to develop critical language learnersin which problem solving tasks are derived from real life situations.According to Kabilan , the learners should experience five steps of theproblem-posing methodology (Nixon-Ponder, 1995): which are following(1) describe the content of discussion , (2) define the problem ,(3)personalize the problem , (4) discuss the problem and (5)discuss thealternatives of the problem.In the context of language learning courses provided by the LanguageCenter, problem solving activities are included in the curriculum, providingeffective communication as well as critical thinking.Critical reading can be defined as an active process of questioning ,analyzing and inferring the content read throughout the reading process.Language learners who are involved the above named processes developcritical thinking abilities as well as critical reading. In order to promoteactive, critical reading, teachers must create an atmosphere which promotesquestioning, previewing and predicting, inferring and reaching conclusionswhile reading a given text. In the context of the LC courses , these skills aredeveloped through pre-reading tasks and activities, such are previewing ,predicting, while-reading activities: skimming, scanning, reading for gist anddetails, inferring from the content and post-reading activities : analyzing,discussing the content, writing.Debate in a Language ClassroomAlthough debates are considered to be very challenging, they are also anenjoyable and engaging activities for majority language learners Theadvantages of implementing a debate in an EFL context is that they providespeaking practice and develops the skills for stating arguments clearly andskills for persuasive speaking and essay writing. For instance, Davidson(1996) in Krieger (2003) emphasises that with practice, many students showobvious progress in their ability to express and defend ideas in debate they178