Critical Reading Of Research Articles As Oral Activator In The Language

This paper reports on an experience carried out with second course students of the School of Aeronautical Engineers at the Polytechnic University of Madrid in the subject class Modern Technical Language. In the previous years the problem in that class had been the scarce participation of the students in the oral practices. They seemed to be lead and exclusively represented by a few students when it came to oral participation. The students proposed tackling recent research articles in which opinions could be discussed. The reading of these articles has risen new elements that work as language activators in the language classroom: critical reading and thinking have developed participation in the oral activities and produced a noticeable influence on their scientific and humanist thinking and behavior.From this, we may extract the consequence that the experience is not only related to scientific knowledge, since it has made them better speakers or speaking-counterparts and more class-participating and collaborative, which implies that the human, scientific and linguistic factors progress at the same time through the critical experience. This way, the exposition of their critical ideas has developed both their humanism and scientific mind. These two facets which seem to belong to far away fields become a bond in our experience: the process is scientific since it tries to be a systematic study of the knowledge fleshed in written texts and it is also humanist because it fulfils the students need to grow up as persons, that is absorbing knowledge and processing it in order to produce a new personal approach to the world.

___

  • Allwright, D. & Bailey, K. M.. (1991). Focus on the Language Classroom: An introduction to classroom research by language teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Bartlett, L. & Butler, L. (1985). The Planned Curriculum and Being a Curriculum
  • Planner in the Adult Migration Program. Report to the Committee of Review of the Adult Migration Program. Canberra: Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs. Bean, J. (1996). Helping students read difficult texts. Engaging Ideas: The Professor’s Guide to Integrating Writing. Critical Thinking and Active Learning in the Classroom. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, pgs: 133-147.
  • Beck, I. L.(1989). Reading and Reasoning. Reading Teacher, 42 (9) 676-82.
  • Bolitho, R. (1990). An eternal triangle? Roles for teachers, learners, and teaching materials in a communicative approach. Arivan, S. (Ed.). Language Teaching
  • Methodology for the nineties. Singapore: SEMEO Regional Language Centre. Breen, M. P. (1984). Process syllabuses for the language classroom. Brumfit C. J.
  • (Ed.). General English Syllabus Design. ELT documents 118. Oxford: Pergamon Press. Brindley, G. (1984). Needs Analysis and Objective Setting in the Adult Migrant
  • Education Program. Sydney: NSW Adult Migration Education Service. Carr, K. S. (1988). How Can We Teach Critical Thinking?. Childhood Education, (2), 69-73.
  • Corder, P. (1990). Talking shop: Pit Corder on language teaching and applied linguistics. Rossner, R. and R. Bolitho (Eds.). Currents of Change in English
  • Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Curran, C. A. (1972). Counseling-Learning. New York: Grune and Stratton, Inc.
  • Edelsky, C. (1989). Putting language variation to work for you. P. Rigg, & V. G. Allen
  • (Eds.), When they don't all speak English: Integrating the ESL student into the regular classroom. (pp. 96-107). Urbana: National Council of Teachers of English. Enright, D. S. & McCloskey M. L. (1988). Integrating English: Developing English language and literacy in the multilingual classroom. Reading: Addison-Wesley
  • Publishing Company, Inc. Flynn, L. L. (1989). Developing Critical Reading Skills through Comparative Problem
  • Solving. Reading Teacher, 42(9), 664-68. Horwitz, E. K., Horwitz, M. B. & Cope, J. A.. (1991). Foreign language classroom anxiety. E. K. Horwitz & D. J. Young (Eds.). Language anxiety: From theory and research to classroom implications. (pp. 27-36). Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, Inc.
  • Klippel, F. (1984). Using a videocamera and task-based activities to make classroom a more realistic communicative experience. Foreign Language Annals, 27(2), 161-220.
  • Long, M. H. (1983). Does second language instruction make a difference. A review of research. TESOL Quarterly, 17, 3.
  • Lotman, Y. M. (1988). Text within a text. Soviet Psychology 24/3, pgs. 32-51.
  • Lotman, Y. M. (1990). Universe of the mind. A semiotic theory of culture. Indiana University Press.
  • Moll, M. et al. (1982). Developing critical thinking skills in biology. Journal of
  • College Science Teaching, pgs: 95-98. Myers, S. A. (1995). Using written text to teach oral skills: An ITA training class using field specific materials. English for Specific Purposes 14, 3, 231-240.
  • Neilsen, A. R. (1989). Critical Thinking and Reading. Bloomington. ERIC
  • Clearinghouse on Reading/Communication Skills. Nystrand, M. & Gamoran, A. (1991). Instructional discourse, student engagement, and literature achievement. Research in the Teaching of English, Vol 25. no 3: 261-290.
  • Olson, C. B. (1985). The thinking/writing connection’. Developing Minds: A
  • Resource Book for Teaching Thinking. A. L. Costa (ed.): Association for Supervisión and Curriculum Development, pgs: 102-107. Riecken, T. J. & Miller M. R. (1990). Introduce Children to Problem Solving and Decision Making by Using Children's Literature. Social Studies, 81(2), 59-64.
  • Schumann, J. H. (1980). Affective factors and the problem of age in second language acquisition. W. Croft (Ed.). Readings of English as a Second Language. pp. 247. Cambridge: Winth Inc.
  • Savignon, S. J. (1983). Communicative Competence: An experiment in foreign language teaching. Philadelphia: Centre for Curriculum Development.
  • Savignon, S. J. (1987). Communicative language teaching. Theory Into Practice, (4), 236-241.
  • Stern, H. H. (1983). Fundamental Concepts of Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Stern, H. H. (1984). Review and discussion. Brumfit, C. J. (Ed.) General English
  • Syllabus Design. ELT documents: 118. Oxford: Pergamon Press. Scott, M. (1997). Critical reading for ESP, or how Napoleon became a general.
  • Applied Linguistics: Theory and Practice in ESP. Valencia: Universidad de Valencia, 150. Sweet, A. P. (1993). Transforming Ideas for Teaching and Learning to Read.
  • Washington: Office of Educational Research and Improvement. Tarone, E. & Yule, G. (1989). Focus on the Language Learner. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Tierney, R. J. & Pearson, P. D. (1983). Toward a Composing Model of
  • Reading.Language. Arts, 60(5), 568-80. Turner, M. (1998). Writing Across the Curriculum and Critical Thinking Skills in
  • Nursing, in Writing Across the Curriculum 9, pgs: 1-2. Vivanco, V. (2002). La adquisición de vocabulario en una segunda lengua:
  • Estrategias cognitivas y vínculos afectivos. Encuentro (Revista de la Univ. De Alcalá). 2002, pgs. 177-187.
  • White, R., Martin, M., Stimson,M. & Hog, R. (1991). Management in English
  • Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.