Today’s students are growing up into an ever-‐changing and unpredictable world. As educators we need to respond to this by equipping them with the skills required to face those challenges. One of the most important assets to be developed is critical thinking, as it enables people to assess new information, understand unexpected challenges, think ‘outside the box’, make decisions, solve problems and evaluate their own performance – in other words, to develop tools for lifelong learning.
In this session, Herbert demonstrates how you can enrich students’ language learning through engaging them in real-‐world thinking tasks, and help them with both the child’s cognitive and linguistic development. At the same time, such an approach gives the teacher plenty of opportunities to take the students seriously as they go through the important cognitive steps that occur naturally when people think creatively, solve problems and work together with others. This in turn sends out very important messages to the students, enabling them to develop feelings of competence and serious involvement in their work.