online journals on critical thinking skills

What is and is not universal in critical thinking

Critical thinking is based on concepts and principles, not on hard and fast, or step-by-step, procedures. ^[1] Critical thinking does not assure that one will reach either the truth or correct conclusions. First, one may not have all the relevant information; indeed, important information may remain undiscovered, or the information may not even be knowable. Furthermore, one may make unjustified inferences, use inappropriate concepts, fail to notice important implications, use a narrow or unfair point of view. One may be a victim of self-delusion, egocentricity or sociocentricity, or closed-mindedness. One’s thinking may be unclear, inaccurate, imprecise, irrelevant, narrow, shallow, illogical, or trivial. One may be intellectually arrogant, intellectually lazy, or intellectually hypocritical. These are some of the ways that human thinking can be flawed. Further information can be found in the Thinker’s Guide series by Richard Paul and Linda Elder.

Human thinking left to itself often leads to various forms of self-deception, individually and socially; and at the left, right, and mainstream of economic, political, and religious issues. Further analysis and resources about this interaction may be found in Roderick Hindery (2001): Indoctrination and Self-deception or Free and Critical Thought.

the online tesl journals on Language Acquisition

Employee Skills and Attitudes Utilized in Workplace ESL Training

A description of how the author facilitated English language acquisition in the workplace.Izabella Horvath
ihorvath [at] aol.com

Workplace ESL is a specific environment, where the ESL trainer’s skills and ingenuity are challenged on a continuous basis. When training non-English speaking employees involved in manual labor, a trainer must know what the previous academic exposure of each employee had been. The average academic- oriented ESL instruction is often ill fit for those employees whose academic training is barely on the elementary school level. These approaches tend to intimidate them, a state which is counterproductive to language learning.

However, there are a number of other skills they possess which are closely related to their daily work. Therefore, it behooves the trainer to pay close attention, make efforts to discover, and fully exploit these skills for the language learning process. This can be done with positive results.

I had the opportunity to work with a group of employees at a leading ice-cream additive producer company in Chicago. They were Mexican-American men and women between 30-55, with little basic formal education. They work as forklift operators, machine operators on the production line, packers, quality controllers, and custodians . They have been with the company between 7 to 20 years.

First, I had to draw up an employee skill and attitude profile, so I could determine the direction for the program and the lessons, thereby enabling them to learn on their own terms, rather than impose on them a heavily academic oriented, (books, worksheets, written assignments) program . By conducting discussions with middle management, questioning the employees, I soon discovered that working with thousands of pounds of ingredients daily, and following detailed recipes for manufacturing, required a sense of responsibility, good powers of concentration, patience, and teamwork. The workers were also keenly aware that language learning needed time and effort. None had the illusion that it was going to be easy. They also valued education They exhibited great respect for knowledge and educators, mostly because they had few opportunities to study and now had a unique opportunity to do so. . They were also fiercely proud of their Mexican heritage, as well as the work they performed–often physically taxing–at the company. I also discovered they loved to talk about their jobs. Though they exhibited some sense of inferiority because of their lack of education and English knowledge, they had a strong feeling of identity and were eager to share it and their practical knowledge.

My assignment for critical thinking skills

Find one journal article about the teaching of thinking skills in language teaching,after finding the article,you need to reflect all the procrdures that you have employed in the process of finding the article

1. After I get the assignment from the teacher ,I read the reqirement,then I analyse the question.

2. I think I must find the article that is on the thinking skills in language teaching.It could be on magzines or newspapers.

3. I think if I find it in magzines or newspapers it would be more better,but depends on my situation.It’s truly not so easy to find a suitable magzine or newspaper which include articles on this.And if I use the internet it would become easier.