Abstract:

Recent trends in the teaching of English as a Foreign or Second Language (EFL, ESL) have emphasized the importance of promoting thinking as an integral part of English language pedagogy. Teaching for thinking has become a major goal of instruction in all subject areas, which calls for teaching students in ways that improve the quality of their thinking. This research paper presents a suggested program that was designed to develop the skills of teaching for thinking among fourth year pre-service English language teachers who were taking a practical teaching course in the Faculty of Education at Princess Noura University in Riyadh , Saudi Arabia .The program aims at providing the knowledge and skills necessary for preparing teachers of thinking to invite, maintain and enhance students’ thinking in the classroom. It consists of six units that address various issues and practices in teaching thinking. Included in each unit are the following elements: title of the unit; overall time needed; instructional objectives or outcomes, content, methods of instruction, learning activities, lesson plans, evaluation techniques, and lists of suggested resources and materials. Coaching was used to train a sample of fourth year students to examine the validity of the program and its effect on developing their skills of teaching for thinking. A classroom observation checklist was designed to assess the student teachers’ progress in such skills, based on the behaviours that enable students’ thinking. The units of the program are as follows:
1st Unit: The concept of thinking. What is meant by thinking? What is meant by better thinking? The necessity to develop thinking; characteristics of good thinkers who employ effective habits of minds.
2nd Unit: Levels and processes of thinking. Basic thinking skills; thinking skills for the information age: critical thinking, creative thinking, and metacognition; the need to apply these thinking operations to real world issues.
3rd Unit: Teaching thinking. The need to teach thinking; the components of a balanced program for teaching thinking: teaching for thinking, teaching of thinking, and teaching about thinking; principles and practices of teaching for thinking in EFL classrooms.
4th Unit: Teacher behaviors that enable students’ thinking. Four major categories of teacher behaviors: questioning, responding, structuring, and modelling; examples of these instructional strategies/ behaviors.
5th Unit: Planning lessons to teach for thinking. Employing thinking strategies for teaching thinking (visual techniques, problem solving); classroom environment that enhances students thinking; the use of visual media.
6th Unit: Evaluation of thinking. Techniques of assessing teaching for thinking (classroom observation checklist, self-reflection on models of teaching); techniques for assessing growth in students thinking abilities (tests, portfolios, checklists)
Research results are then analysed and discussed.

Keywords:

methods of tefl, thinking skills, research project, pre-service teachers, teaching.