Opening minds: collaborative work promoting students’ critical thinking and oral production in english classes

Texto completo

(1)Opening Minds: Collaborative Work Promoting Students’ Critical Thinking and Oral Production in English classes. Karol Viviana Motato Alvarez 20122165523. MONOGRAFÍA DE GRADO. Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas Facultad de Ciencias y Educación Licenciatura en Educación Básica con Enfasis en Inglés Bogotá, 2018.

(2) . 2. OPENING MINDS: COLLABORATIVE WORK TO PROMOTE STUDENTS’ CRITICAL THINKING AND ORAL PRODUCTION IN ENGLISH CLASSES. Opening Minds: Collaborative Work Promoting Students’ Critical Thinking and Oral Production in English class. Karol Viviana Motato Alvarez 20122165523. Oscar Reyes, M.A.. Tutor. A Final Dissertation submitted as a requirement to obtain an undergraduate degree as Bachelor in Basic Education with Emphasis in English. Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas Facultad de Ciencias y Educación Proyecto curricular Licenciatura en Educación Básica con Énfasis en Inglés Bogotá, 2018.

(3) . 3. OPENING MINDS: COLLABORATIVE WORK TO PROMOTE STUDENTS’ CRITICAL THINKING AND ORAL PRODUCTION IN ENGLISH CLASSES. Opening Minds: Collaborative Work Promoting Students’ Critical Thinking and Oral Production in English class. Note of acceptance ______________________________________ ______________________________________ ______________________________________ ______________________________________. ___________________________________ Juror. ___________________________________ Juror.

(4) . 4. OPENING MINDS: COLLABORATIVE WORK TO PROMOTE STUDENTS’ CRITICAL THINKING AND ORAL PRODUCTION IN ENGLISH CLASSES. Abstract This research aimed to integrate collaborative work in English class as an important tool which, could provide students with several opportunities to work together, to get them away from traditional paper-and-pencil tests and though the use of critical thinking based on a variety of topics or issues which, were discussed in groups, in order to express their opinions and, to feel motivated to produce different and authentic speeches in an oral way in each one of the students who were involved in the process. The participants chosen for this study was a course of tenth graders aged between fourteen to sixteen years old. The data was gathered through teacher’s journal, students’ interviews, recordings and a rubric. The results showed that students were engaged and more interested when integrating new dynamics in English class for their learning process. They also became more responsible taking charge of their own work and, they realized of the importance of working together.. Keywords: collaborative work, critical thinking and oral production..

(5) . 5. OPENING MINDS: COLLABORATIVE WORK TO PROMOTE STUDENTS’ CRITICAL THINKING AND ORAL PRODUCTION IN ENGLISH CLASSES. Resumen Esta investigación tenía como objetivo integrar el trabajo colaborativo en la clase de inglés como una herramienta importante la cual podía brindar oportunidades a los estudiantes para trabajar en grupos, ayudar a éstos a alejarse de los exámenes tradicionales de papel y lápiz, mediante el uso del pensamiento crítico con base en una variedad de temas y asuntos los cuales fueron discutidos en grupos con el propósito de expresar sus opiniones, para que se sintieran motivados al producir diferentes y auténticos discursos a nivel oral de cada estudiante que estuvo involucrado en este proceso. Los participantes elegidos fueron un curso de décimo grado con edades comprendidas entre los catorce y dieciséis años. Los datos fueron recolectados a través de diarios de campo del profesor, entrevistas a estudiantes, grabaciones y una rúbrica. Los resultados mostraron que los estudiantes estaban comprometidos y más interesados cuando se integraban nuevas dinámicas en la clase de inglés en su proceso de aprendizaje. Ellos además se volvieron más responsables encargándose de su propio trabajo y se dieron cuenta de la importancia de trabajar juntos.. Palabras clave: trabajo colaborativo, pensamiento crítico y producción oral..

(6) . 6. OPENING MINDS: COLLABORATIVE WORK TO PROMOTE STUDENTS’ CRITICAL THINKING AND ORAL PRODUCTION IN ENGLISH CLASSES. Table of Contents. Chapter 1 Introduction………………………………………………………………………….9 Justification .................................................................................................................................11 Statement of the Problem ............................................................................................................12. Chapter 2 Literature Review........................................................................................................15 Collaborative Work......................................................................................................................15 Oral Production............................................................................................................................20 Critical Thinking ………...…………………………………………….…….............................24. Chapter 3 Research Design………............................................................................................30 Research Questions....................................................................................................................30 Research Objectives...................................................................................................................30 Type of Reseach.........................................................................................................................31 Type of Study ............................................................................................................................31 Description of the Setting……………………………………………………………………..32 Participants’ Profile …………………………………………………………...........................32 Data Collection Methods ...........................................................................................................33 Data Collection Instruments.......................................................................................................34.

(7) . OPENING MINDS: COLLABORATIVE WORK TO PROMOTE STUDENTS’ CRITICAL THINKING AND ORAL PRODUCTION IN ENGLISH CLASSES. Type of Data...............................................................................................................................36 Unit of Analysis.......................................................................................................................37 Validity and Reliability............................................................................................................37. Chapter 4 Instructional Design ……………………………………………………………....40 Setting.......................................................................................................................................40 Population ................................................................................................................................40 Curriculum Platform………………………………………………………………………….41 Educational View......................................................................................................................41 Theory of Curriculum................................................................................................................42 Theory of Learning……………………………………………………………………............42 Theory of Language ………………………………………………………………………......43 Innovative Pedagogical Intervention.........................................................................................44 Methodology …………………………...……………………………………………………..47 Learner Role …………………………...……………………………………………………..50 Teacher Role …………………………...……………………………………………………..50 Material Role …………………………...…………………………………………………….50 Account of Intervention………………...……………………………………………………..51. 7.

(8) . 8. OPENING MINDS: COLLABORATIVE WORK TO PROMOTE STUDENTS’ CRITICAL THINKING AND ORAL PRODUCTION IN ENGLISH CLASSES. Chapter 5 Data Analysis………………………………………………………………………53 Categories…………………………………….....................………………………………….54 Addressing social issues in the classroom…………………………………………………….66 Difficulties in the speeches……………………………………………………………………82 The process of becoming a critical thinker……………………………………………………91 New dynamics inside the English class……………………………………………………….93. Chapter 6 Conclusions ……………..........................................................................................96 Pedagogical implications..........................................................................................................98 References …………………...………………………………………………………………..100 Annexes………………………....……………………………..………..……………………..106.

(9) . 9. OPENING MINDS: COLLABORATIVE WORK TO PROMOTE STUDENTS’ CRITICAL THINKING AND ORAL PRODUCTION IN ENGLISH CLASSES. Chapter One Introduction Currently, English Language is the lingua franca which, means a common language spoken by people with different native languages that allows them to communicate effectively. This language keeps increasing in a very wide way through the time. That is why, the learning of EFL (English as a Foreign Language), is very important and mandatory for many countries and societies which, highlight the importance of the teaching/ learning this language in their educative policies to bring people up with not only oral skills but also with critical thinking skills for communicating through English language. However, it is noticeable that many times, there is a lack of opportunities for communicating and thinking critically in English classes. From that, the motivation for this project started. There is a clear and important need of teachers to look for new ways of teaching where students can communicate and produce authentic speeches in English that are generated through a critical thinking process. That is the reason why my study looks into collaborative as a tool for promoting oral production and critical thinking. The two issues mentioned above (critical thinking, and oral production) were considered due to my pedagogical experiences. First, when students were given opportuinities to talk about a general topic related to social issues, most of their opinions were based on many external influences such as mass media. From there, it raised the need of promoting critical thinking in students to go beyond. to integrate controversial topics where students could research, analyze.

(10) . 10. OPENING MINDS: COLLABORATIVE WORK TO PROMOTE STUDENTS’ CRITICAL THINKING AND ORAL PRODUCTION IN ENGLISH CLASSES. information, state a position and discuss. Also, when those topics were orally integrated into the class, students felt motivated to talk about different topics to share their different ideas, dreams, fears or experiences or opinions. The purpose of this study is to discover, understand and explain what are the effects of integrating collaborative work in a population of tenth graders of a public school located in Kennedy locality in order to provide students with opportunities where they could select a controversial topic, gather information, analyze, do a critical thinking process, distribute the information and later on, present and share to their partners and the teacher the information collected in order to create a space of conversation where students could share their ideas and discuss in groups through the use of Enlgish language. Finally, as an overview, in this document, the reader will find in the first chapter the statement of the problem, describing the reasons to conduct the study; (the context, the specific characteristics and situations), the research question, sub question and research objectives. In the second one, the literature review, which emphasizes in concepts like collaborative work, oral production, and critical thinking. Next, in the chapter three, the research design; there, it is explained the research paradigm and the type of study, the participants and the methods used in this research. The chapter four corresponds to instructional design which, describes the theoretical foundation of the pedagogical intervention, its objectives and the implementation (methodology, teachers, students and materials’ role and the criteria of assessment. The chapter five explains the process of collecting, managing and analyzing data, showing the four categories.

(11) . OPENING MINDS: COLLABORATIVE WORK TO PROMOTE STUDENTS’ CRITICAL THINKING AND ORAL PRODUCTION IN ENGLISH CLASSES. emerged from this process. In the following chapter, it is drawn the conclusions obtained from the research process and, some final pedagogical implications.. 11.

(12) . 12. OPENING MINDS: COLLABORATIVE WORK TO PROMOTE STUDENTS’ CRITICAL THINKING AND ORAL PRODUCTION IN ENGLISH CLASSES. Justification This study is significant because it is very well known that the teaching of English language is mandatory in many countries. In Colombia, the National Education Ministry (MEN) has a program, which started since 2014 called ‘Colombia Bilingüe’. This program claims that despite of the efforts and the resources given to improve English level, just 1% of the students who finish high education obtain B1 level and, it is necessary to improve these results due to students live in a world that everyday requires them to communicate in English with other people. It is important for MEN to develop productive skills in students. However, there is a lack of opportunities to develop and practice those oral skills in many classes because of time given of the English classes, the number of students in every classroom and, that students often feel afraid or powerless to speak due to lack of vocabulary, pronunciation or grammatical structures, even being aware of the importance of the development of productive skills and, this project wants to be part of this process of making of Colombia a bilingual country. This study expects to have an impact in every reader, educator and even students in order to raise awareness on the importance that the integration of collaborative work has in education to make students more critic and collaborative. Also, how it can be easily implemented in every classroom with the purpose of helping students to develop oral production and to raise awareness on students about the importance of critical thinking processes..

(13) . 13. OPENING MINDS: COLLABORATIVE WORK TO PROMOTE STUDENTS’ CRITICAL THINKING AND ORAL PRODUCTION IN ENGLISH CLASSES. This study had a direct impact on the participants due to they rose their awareness towards the importance of English language for their lives. During this study, students had several opportunities in order to be promoted their speaking. They were able to state a position towards a controversial topic through the analysis of information in order to give a personal opinion in English instead of just repeating ideas or sentences. On the other hand, the setting of the students and the community could change, due to some teachers could take these activities as a sample to put into practice in their classes, and to give a new perspective not only to teachers but also to students of how to teach and learn.. Statement of the Problem During my pedagogical experience in secondary in a public school located in the South of Bogotá. I worked with 32 tenth graders (between fourteen and sixteen years old) and, while doing that, I noticed two main issues: the lack of opportunities for students to communicate in English due to the time and the number of students and, the lack of critical thinking from students due to the influence of mass media. From that, my inquiry was about look for strategies to make possible the practice of oral production including the critical thinking in the class. Finding as a possible solution the integration of collaborative work to facilitate those processes. For this reason, I applied a need analysis (see annex 1), which was divided in two parts. The first part was divided in two categories: critical thinking and oral production. For the first part of the need analysis, students understood that critical thinking was to analyze, evaluate and.

(14) . 14. OPENING MINDS: COLLABORATIVE WORK TO PROMOTE STUDENTS’ CRITICAL THINKING AND ORAL PRODUCTION IN ENGLISH CLASSES. propose ideas for common situations which, are considered by the society as true in a more critical way. Below it is shown some samples of what students wrote bout what they thought critical thinking was.. (Examples taken from the need analysis to show students’ opinion about critical thinking). Most of them considered that was important the integration of critical thinking processes in English class because they could experiment the reality, to analyze and evaluate some issues, to express ideas or they lacked of critical thinking and, that there were not some spaces to talk about controversial topics in the classroom..

(15) . 15. OPENING MINDS: COLLABORATIVE WORK TO PROMOTE STUDENTS’ CRITICAL THINKING AND ORAL PRODUCTION IN ENGLISH CLASSES. (Examples taken from the need analysis to show students’ opinion about the implementation of critical thinking processes in English class) In the last part of the first category students were asked to choose the places that the shool provided to create debates of controversial topics and they said that it was the classes followed by break times.. For the second part of the need analysis, students understood oral production was about having a good proficiency when talking also, a way to express their ideas and, to be able to manage their own words in order to express arguments..

(16) . 16. OPENING MINDS: COLLABORATIVE WORK TO PROMOTE STUDENTS’ CRITICAL THINKING AND ORAL PRODUCTION IN ENGLISH CLASSES. (Examples taken from the need analysis to show students’ opinion about what oral production is) Then, students had to select the most relevant aspect for them when learning English, where the majority answered speaking, vocabulary, writing, listening and grammar. The next question was about the importance of learning English, most of them as equal noticed English was important because it could help them to study, work, travel and meet other cultures. Some students said that with English they could share their knowledge with other people. The final question was about the skill they considered the most strengthened to the weakest were results showed the most strengthened were speaking and reading and, the weakest were listening and writing..

(17) . 17. OPENING MINDS: COLLABORATIVE WORK TO PROMOTE STUDENTS’ CRITICAL THINKING AND ORAL PRODUCTION IN ENGLISH CLASSES. The results of this need analysis showed that students were interested in working with critical thinking processes in English class. Also, there were not many opportunities at school to create debates and that there was a real need of integrating controversial topics in the English class to produce speeches in English. On the other hand, it was shown how students considered the oral production skills mportant to communicate with other people. Also, students were aware about the importance of English in many aspects and the opportunities it could offer to anyone. (see annex 2. for the results in charts). The statement of the problem is the want/need/ lack of students for integrating strategies to promote critical thinking and oral production in English class. From this, I posed the following question:.

(18) . 18. OPENING MINDS: COLLABORATIVE WORK TO PROMOTE STUDENTS’ CRITICAL THINKING AND ORAL PRODUCTION IN ENGLISH CLASSES. Research Question What are the effects of integrating collaborative work to promote critical thinking and oral production in English class?. Research Objectives To answer these inquiries, I planned the following research objectives:. General Objective. To explore the effects of integrating collaborative work to promote critical thinking and oral production in English class.. Specific Objective. To describe the students’ oral performance when controversial topics are included in English classroom..

(19) . 19. OPENING MINDS: COLLABORATIVE WORK TO PROMOTE STUDENTS’ CRITICAL THINKING AND ORAL PRODUCTION IN ENGLISH CLASSES. Chapter Two Literature Review This chapter presents the literature from they theory and research based on sources that support collaborative work, oral production and critical thinking. The study is framed within collaborative work and learning area; therefore, I start by discussing the collaborative work, oral production and critical thinking perspectives as a way to situate my study.. Collaborative Work Collaboration. According to RAE, collaboration can be considered as any type of process where it is involved the effort of many people working together for two main purposes: first, to achieve a common goal and second, to facilitate the process of something through the help of several people. And from there, the mere term of collaboration can go beyond a simple group. As the world is composed by countries, cities, societies, companies, families and any kind of group joint either for political, academic or economical purposes, they must get accustomed to the idea of working together. For example, moving to the simplest group: family, the main purpose of parents is to bring their children up and, it could not be possible or so effective without the collaboration of each other. Once the children have grown up, the collaboration part increases, children can take a certain responsibility which, will be essential inside the family. On the other hand, in a society, it.

(20) . 20. OPENING MINDS: COLLABORATIVE WORK TO PROMOTE STUDENTS’ CRITICAL THINKING AND ORAL PRODUCTION IN ENGLISH CLASSES. is necessary the collaboration of each person so the rules stablished can work in a proper way and people can keep evolving. Collaborative work as a way of learning. Just as the examples mentioned above, in most of places and situations, the collaboration is very relevant for the people who are involved in different processes beyond the fact of achieving a goal. The collaboration can also provide a positive way of learning. From this, it is necessary to know how close collaboration is to learning and also, what several researchers have done through it as a way of providing strategies to facilitate the learning process and other purposes. Cornell University which, is a center for teaching innovation defines collaborative learning from the view that knowledge is ‘social construct’. Goldman (1999) mentions that knowledge is a social construct from the perspective that knowledge includes most of beliefs created by people and culture which, are considered as truth and, that they could vary according to the location and the time where these cultures have lived. From this, when students work in a collaborative learning, this involves the work of two or more students in a group to discuss an issue, to listen to different students’ opinions, to make agreements or to find a solution to a problem. That is how knowledge can be constructed or created by students themselves and, in this same way, students can learn in a collaborative way. However, this is not enough, there are four main principles to follow so collaborative learning can work effectively:.

(21) . 21. OPENING MINDS: COLLABORATIVE WORK TO PROMOTE STUDENTS’ CRITICAL THINKING AND ORAL PRODUCTION IN ENGLISH CLASSES. The learner or student is the primary focus on the instruction. The students are more important than the teacher or the content itself as they are constructing the knowledge. Interaction and ‘doing’ are of primary importance. Students are needed for encouragement and motivation, without them students cannot interact, and the process will not be successful. Working in groups is an important mode of learning. It is necessary to understand that working in groups is also a way of learning and, that can result very meaningful for any kind of activity. Structured approaches to developing solutions to real-world problems should be incorporated into learning. Real situations are part of the process of learning and these debates provide students opportunities to think and analyze under an organized instruction given by the teacher.. The importance of including collaborative work inside the classroom. Many teacher- researchers have been interested in this issue, in the same way they have realized about the impact that collaborative work has had in their classes. This is the case of Gaitán & Veloza (2015) which project was about how gendered power relationships affected in a negative way the learning process of first graders and how collaborative work could be a way to solve their conflict and provide opportunities to deal with this and, discuss about it. After the.

(22) . 22. OPENING MINDS: COLLABORATIVE WORK TO PROMOTE STUDENTS’ CRITICAL THINKING AND ORAL PRODUCTION IN ENGLISH CLASSES. application of several activities related to the collaborative work, it was noticeable the conflicts generated by these activities. However, at the end of the process, students learnt to be more tolerant, flexible, and respectful to different opinions. This previous research reinforces the use of collaboration as a social construct able not just to create beliefs but also to modify them like the gendered power relationships can be. Just as the project above, it is noticeable how this promotes some reflective thinking inside the students’ thoughts. For example, in another research proposed by Gómez (2016) was about a collaborative inquiry as a way to promote elementary students’ reflections of their coexistence in the EFL classroom. After Gómez attempted this through the use of many activities that encourage students to work in groups, there must have had some reflections either on a notebook or in several posters they had to make. At the end of the research, students were able to realize about the importance of understanding that they are sharing a place and beyond that that they are part of a community where working in group is essential. Although in the two studies mentioned above, collaboration was focused on social issues, but also in the language learning/teaching, in this case English. As Nunan (1992) mentions collaboration has been a sphere over the last ten years related to the language where teachers, researchers or learners may use it for different purposes but one of the most relevant ones is to promote a philosophy of collaboration rather than competition. Most of students are supposed to be in the same English level, however there are some cases in which some students have a higher level of English than the average so, some students may feel frustrated or not good at English.

(23) . 23. OPENING MINDS: COLLABORATIVE WORK TO PROMOTE STUDENTS’ CRITICAL THINKING AND ORAL PRODUCTION IN ENGLISH CLASSES. because of other students. In this sense, the idea through collaboration is to create an environment where students can learn from other and all can improve their English level. For example, Ramírez (2016) in her study attempted to add not only a social issue (conflict resolution) but also a pedagogical one (oral tasks in English) related to the language. This research was based on conflictive activities that engage students to solve problems in groups as well as they were practicing their spoken English. Not all the times collaborative must include a social aspect, but it could be merely use for pedagogical purposes where students can learn working together. A Barkley, Major & Cross (2014) state the teacher is not the owner of the knowledge in which, he/she is supposed to transfer it to the students. Now, students build their own knowledge making this meaningful to their life and own experiences. Narea (2017) following this statement decided to implement collaborative work to the enhancement of pragmatic skills in language learning. Students of this study lacked of grammar and vocabulary. To achieve the purpose of this, Narea applied several activities like presentations and tasks inside the classes and, as a conclusion students did a better performance. Finally, in terms of the importance of collaborative work inside the classroom there some features or benefits which, are followed by three main strategies in order to achieve the efficiency of collaborative work..

(24) . 24. OPENING MINDS: COLLABORATIVE WORK TO PROMOTE STUDENTS’ CRITICAL THINKING AND ORAL PRODUCTION IN ENGLISH CLASSES. Three main strategies for an effective collaborative work activity. Introduce the task. Explain students what they are suppose to do, if it is needed to move or organize the chairs for a better development of the activity. Provide students with time. Time may be the most important aspect for a useful activity. It is necessary to provide the right time to students in order to engage them with the task. But not too much time, otherwise students will get bored and start doing other things. Teacher must walk around to monitor the process in order to know how groups are going. Debrief. Each group must share the ideas discussed in each group. So other groups can listen different perspectives as well as the teacher can clarify any doubt. It also could be included reflection exercises either written or spoken.. Oral Production What speaking is. According to Fulcher (2003). Speaking is the verbal use of language to communicate with others. Speaking is considered as a natural and remarkable ability which raises in all human beings with the purpose of communicating, that is the main key. People want to communicate for specific purposes in order to achieve something. If someone asks: ‘Can you open the door?’ it is.

(25) . 25. OPENING MINDS: COLLABORATIVE WORK TO PROMOTE STUDENTS’ CRITICAL THINKING AND ORAL PRODUCTION IN ENGLISH CLASSES. likely that someone will open the door although, the most reasonable answer would be just ‘yes’. For this reason, two main issues are important to define and differentiate when discussing about speaking in any language: knowledge and skill. Knowledge about the language and Skill to use the language. Bygate (1987) suggests a very interesting example to understand this difference: An analogy with the driver of a car may be helpful. What knowledge does a car. driver. need? Clearly, he or she needs to know the names of the control, where they are, what they do and how they are operated (you move the pedals with your feet, not with your hands). However, the driver also needs the skill to be able to use the control to guide the car long a road without hitting the various objects that tend to get in the way, you have to be able to do this at a normal speed (p. 3) In this part, it is very highlighted that is not the same the knowledge that is attributed to the theoretical part to the skill which is the practical. Referring to language, the knowledge can be considered as the grammar, expressions, vocabulary, all that is needed to speaking and the skill which, includes the fluency, accuracy to put in practice correctly the knowledge. This is very common in most of schools, students have the knowledge but they lack of skills, it could be evidenced in a study carried by Bohórquez & Chamba (2013) where they took a seventh grade that was supposed to be in an elementary level. However, when they applied speaking activities students forgot the grammar and the vocabulary, they were not able to arrange simple sentences despite of their English level. Their technique to promote the speaking was a.

(26) . 26. OPENING MINDS: COLLABORATIVE WORK TO PROMOTE STUDENTS’ CRITICAL THINKING AND ORAL PRODUCTION IN ENGLISH CLASSES. Natural approach, however, according to Castillo (2014) there are some stages of knowledge and how it can be transformed into a skill, the first stage is the declarative which, consists of the knowledge itself (information stored), then the functional stage which, it is needed to know where and when the knowledge can be used, and the metacognitive level where students can use the knowledge in a proper way getting this inside their own context becoming a skill. From there, it can be evidenced that speaking in a second language has been an issue very important for many teacher- researchers who look for ways to encourage speaking because of the lack of opportunities to practice. That is the reason why, it was take into account a study carried by Redondo, D. (2013) who was interested in getting to know some strategies to improve the oral production skills in a public where it was found some difficulties in the participants when speaking. The most important strategy was the role play which, allowed students to work collaboratively and also, to be placed in different situations where they could put into practice their knowledge related to the language. Another study which aimed to foster the oral production was carried by Bula (2013) in an institute focused on conversation. Two students participated who were placed in B1 level, however, their speaking level was not the expected. According to this, Bula (2013) provided different type of activities which fostered students’ oral production, he also followed some principles for teaching speaking based on Bailey (2005):. Provide something for learners to talk about..

(27) . 27. OPENING MINDS: COLLABORATIVE WORK TO PROMOTE STUDENTS’ CRITICAL THINKING AND ORAL PRODUCTION IN ENGLISH CLASSES. Students often feel that English is something artificial or unreal. For that reason, most of students do not find the importance of it. The role of the teacher is to raise the interest of speaking in this language and the importance of it. Create opportunities for students to interact by using group work or pair work. As speaking does not consist of communicating one-self, it is necessary another person to communicate, many times because of time not all students can speak, and some other times because they feel ashamed. So, collaboration is an important tool to enhance communication. Manipulate physical arrangements to promote speaking. Changing the physical environment to promote speaking not only gives variety and spice to a language class, but also reflects a real and changing world. Several grouping strategies and physical arrangements can promote oral production quiet efficiently. The most common seating arrangements are: round robin, the inside-outside circle, numbered heads together, find someone who, circulation, mix and match, cock- tail party, and tango seating. Personalize the content of speaking activities whenever possible. When these personalized activities are introduced into the classes, it is more likely to catch students’ attention.. Difficulties on fostering speaking. However, fostering this interactional skill into the classroom can result a really difficult issue. According to Baker & Westrup (2003), many students find difficult to respond if the.

(28) . 28. OPENING MINDS: COLLABORATIVE WORK TO PROMOTE STUDENTS’ CRITICAL THINKING AND ORAL PRODUCTION IN ENGLISH CLASSES. teacher asks them to say something in a foreign language, I agree with that from my personal and pedagogical experience. The students tend to feel ashamed and nervous, they may have little idea about what to say, but they may not know how to express their ideas and connect them to make sense. For this, it is necessary to involve students into the vocabulary and grammar that students will need for the context where students need to be placed by using many speaking activities.. Frameworks for fostering speaking. There are many frameworks to foster speaking. However, one of the biggest one is from Baker & Westrup (2003) who propose a suitable framework to develop the lessons for those speaking activities. The PPP or ‘Presentation, Practice and Production’ model is effective for lower levels and where students have little input apart from their teacher and course books. Divided in: grammar, vocabulary and functional language. Functional language is a way of describing what we do within the language (giving information or asking for advice). It is necessary to be created a supportive atmosphere by reducing the risk of students making mistakes. Consequently, as O’Malley, & Valdez (1996) state, it can be improved students’ motivation by allowing them some time to prepare and practice before they have to speak, so they can perform in a better way as. In this way, students do not feel pressured to say something until they have had time to think about for this, it is very important that lessons made by the teacher are interesting and to contain varied activities to give students, particularly younger ones,.

(29) . 29. OPENING MINDS: COLLABORATIVE WORK TO PROMOTE STUDENTS’ CRITICAL THINKING AND ORAL PRODUCTION IN ENGLISH CLASSES. as much encouragement as possible. Students need to participate actively and to enjoy their English classes feeling that English has a real use.. Producing from own authentic contexts. Therefore, students should not be asked to repeat sentences but to give them a topic where they will have to construct their own answers and inquiries. This will produce an authentic language, it is a means of giving a setting real-world such as situations of their everyday life as O’Malley, & Valdez, P. (1996) mentioned once. Undoubtedly, as Baker & Westrup (2003) explain, in real life people do not repeat what others say, but they create their own sentences and the dialogues are produced according to the situations they are facing on. That is exactly the key of teaching/learning: to use the language as a whole for using it to translate the thoughts into words, words into phrases, phrases into sentences, sentences into speeches with a specific purpose even if it is the simplest one such as asking someone about what his/her name is. As a result of the process mentioned above, it is necessary the development of interactional skills that involve making decisions about communication such as: what to say, how to say it, where to develop it, in accordance of right or wrong depends on what we have decided to say, and checking how successful it was what was said, because that is what people do in their mother tongue and should not be a big deal when doing the same in a second or foreign language. Critical Thinking .

(30) . 30. OPENING MINDS: COLLABORATIVE WORK TO PROMOTE STUDENTS’ CRITICAL THINKING AND ORAL PRODUCTION IN ENGLISH CLASSES. What thinking is. According to Garcia (1995), the human thinking is for sure one of the most complex products created by the nature, but not only by it but also by the whole evolution and social processes that human beings have faced during their history. When thinking, there are many processes developed through it and, they are so fast that human beings are not actually aware of all the process of thinking that they have just made. Thinking is about combining, prioritizing ideas, making inferences, extracting information and generating conclusions. After all this process, there is just one way of how thoughts can be expressed and, it is through the language as it is stated by Garcia (1995). This is a whole parallel process where ideas are being processed as they are expressed through common symbols that other people understand.. What about critical thinking? There are many definitions that can be considered for critical thinking. For example, Kurland (2000) states that ‘critical thinking involves bringing outside knowledge and values to bear to evaluate the presentation and decide what to ultimately accept as true’. On the other hand, the National Council for excellence in critical thinking (1987) defines critical thinking as In its exemplary form, it is based on universal intellectual values that transcend subject matter divisions: clarity, accuracy, precision, consistency, relevance, sound evidence, good reasons, depth, breadth, and fairness..

(31) . 31. OPENING MINDS: COLLABORATIVE WORK TO PROMOTE STUDENTS’ CRITICAL THINKING AND ORAL PRODUCTION IN ENGLISH CLASSES. In different terms, critical thinking can be considered as the process of thinking (which implies analysis, process, understanding, learning and inferring) taking into account all the previous knowledge acquired during the whole life. It means of an ability of collecting information from different experiences and processing the most suitable for each person. That is the reason why critical thinking is so important. Not all thoughts are the same, they could vary depending on the type of ‘life’, the experiences during the life, the economical situation, religious beliefs, political position and so on. When people do not make processes of critical thinking, people accept the realities they are facing to, as normal or as something that is happening just by chance and, there is no way to change it. For example, if there is corruption in a country. Sometimes the lack of critical thinking is worse due to, people take for granted the speeches of other people they blindly believe to. One evident example is how mass media (including TV, radio, social networks or newspaper) affects the way how people think and they take the mass media speeches as their own ones. In this way, this become a cycle of groups of people with the same speeches and ideas even, if a certain way they are wrong. It is clear the importance of the development of critical thinking. Most of school they do not help students to develop it. Sometimes what school does is to enclose students in a bubble as ‘the perfect world’ and, it just focuses on their academic subjects, they learn some topics and, students come back home to do homework. That is exactly what Garcia (1995) opposes to. He defends an analytical and integral education where students go beyond a simple definition of.

(32) . 32. OPENING MINDS: COLLABORATIVE WORK TO PROMOTE STUDENTS’ CRITICAL THINKING AND ORAL PRODUCTION IN ENGLISH CLASSES. something (for example abortion). A type of education in which the teaching stimulates the critical thinking through different type of activities provided by the teachers where students can work in groups read, discuss, take positions, ask for something and so on. This is a need that has not only been seen by Garcia. There are many teacher-researchers interested in stimulating the critical thinking and, that at the same time can help students to improve some aspects of their abilities in the class. For example, Tapasco & Trejos (2008) carried a study related to develop the critical thinking in the sexual education (in terms of the discrimination of gender) with a group of just third graders which were aged between 7 to 9 years old. They provided to the teachers the different problematic in the classroom and the most common was when students had to provide arguments to face a problem and, as they did not have arguments they decided to discriminate or to face the problems through the aggression. At the end of the process, students were able to change their aggressive attitudes and to think better when facing a problem.. How to become a critical thinker?. Children are not born being critical thinkers, however, as it was noticeable in the study mentioned above, from a very early age this can be promoted. According to an article provided by California Sate University, there are six stages to be followed by teachers to stimulate students to become critical thinkers:.

(33) . 33. OPENING MINDS: COLLABORATIVE WORK TO PROMOTE STUDENTS’ CRITICAL THINKING AND ORAL PRODUCTION IN ENGLISH CLASSES. Knowledge. This first step consists of providing students material to know about the topic that will be discussed, students can look for more information, recall information from their own experiences or what they have heard. In the case of bringing material or autonomous work of students it is recommended suitable and appropriate material that is objective, so students can do properly the other activities. This is the simplest step but at the same time the base for a critical thinking process. Comprehension. Once students have the information, understanding what it means is the step of comprehension. Students can explain and summarize what the material says using their own words. This is a very important ability to develop because students tend not to read, and when they are asked to summarize they have to look at the material and read it. So students need to be able to explain in a clear way a topic. This is a more complex step that can be done at the same time that knowledge is presented.. Application. Once students understand clearly the topic and what the material has proposed, the application is about using this material and to apply it in different situations. For this, there is a higher level of thinking, students must know that there is nothing absolutely true, this refers to.

(34) . 34. OPENING MINDS: COLLABORATIVE WORK TO PROMOTE STUDENTS’ CRITICAL THINKING AND ORAL PRODUCTION IN ENGLISH CLASSES. the ability to use learned material in new and concrete situations where knowledge from the theory may change to look for a solution. Analysis. Analysis steps consists of separating the material in an organized way, so it can be understood easily finding aspects that may have not been noticeable in the step of knowledge. And, in this same way, to be able to join ideas of the whole parts of the text or a speech. In this learning process, students are able present a higher thinking because they can identify aspects beyond the literal that are offered in the text. Synthesis. Synthesis refers to the ability to put the parts of the text joined but the difference is that this step will produce something new created by the students. This step includes classifying, operation, information and new ideas, including the old and new ones. The emphasis of this high critical step is to summarize an idea with no need of repeating same words and complete ideas of the text where the information was taken from. Evaluation. Once all these processes were done. Evaluation will be considered as the last step. In this, students will be able to judge, give an opinion, agree or refuse to a certain idea, text, speech. For giving this, students must have both external and internal criteria. This leaning outcome is the last and the highest during all the process, from this, that i show critical thinking can be achieved in students..

(35) . 35. OPENING MINDS: COLLABORATIVE WORK TO PROMOTE STUDENTS’ CRITICAL THINKING AND ORAL PRODUCTION IN ENGLISH CLASSES. How does implementation of critical thinking foster the oral production?. The same question was proposed by Malmir (2012) in her study of 40 Iranian ELF learners who were divided into an experiential group and non-experiential. Malmir had the purpose of creating new ways to promote their speaking, so she tried the critical thinking as one. Based on the speaking TOEFL exam, some questions were constructed, some of them where about the family for the non-experiential group and, the others were more complex like the reasons of divorce in their country which, was for the experiential group. Both groups showed an improvement, but it was higher in the experiential group in which some strategies were implemented related to critical thinking. From this, it is evident that the implementation of critical thinking strategies to help and motivate students to communicate either in their native language or a foreign one. Students are more interested in learning something when real life situations are brought to class in which students can put in practice what they have learnt..

(36) . 36. OPENING MINDS: COLLABORATIVE WORK TO PROMOTE STUDENTS’ CRITICAL THINKING AND ORAL PRODUCTION IN ENGLISH CLASSES. Chapter Three Research Design This chapter presents the research question, research objective, the type of study, a description of the context, the role of the teacher, students and materials, the techniques and instruments for data collection as well as the type of data, unit of analysis and finally the validity and reliability strategies used in the study.. Research Question What are the effects of integrating collaborative work to promote critical thinking and oral production in English class?. Research Objectives In order to answer these inquiries, I planned the following research objectives: General Objective. To explore the effects of integrating collaborative work to promote critical thinking and oral production in English class. Specific Objective. To describe the students’ oral performance when collaborative work is included in the English classroom..

(37) . 37. OPENING MINDS: COLLABORATIVE WORK TO PROMOTE STUDENTS’ CRITICAL THINKING AND ORAL PRODUCTION IN ENGLISH CLASSES. Type of Research The paradigm interested for this study is framed within Qualitative Research. Johnson and Christensen (2017) affirm that this paradigm is based on the understanding of behavioral and natural environments and, the analysis of the context in order to identify an educational issue through an observation of words or pictures that generates a hypothesis to start exploring and discovering, in this case, the critical thinking as an issue about the perceptions and thoughts of the students. Moreover, Johnson and Christensen (2017) describe several types of study, but this study will be based on Action Research.. Type of Study According to Kemmis, S., McTaggart, R. & Nixon, R. (1997), action research covers many approaches, but all of them, are focused on the changing of a common or traditional social practice. Action research has: ‘the recognition of the capacity of people living and working in particular settings to participate actively in all aspects of the research process and, the research conducted by participants is oriented to making improvements in practices and their settings by the participants themselves.’ (Kemmis, S., McTaggart, R. & Nixon, R. ((1997) Pp. 4). For this reason, action research is based on actual practices such as in the educational contexts referring to particular materials, situations, people and places. As Kemmis, S., McTaggart, R. & Nixon, R. (1997) mention, it is also important to focus on an aspect of the learning. For this.

(38) . 38. OPENING MINDS: COLLABORATIVE WORK TO PROMOTE STUDENTS’ CRITICAL THINKING AND ORAL PRODUCTION IN ENGLISH CLASSES. study, the action research will be carried on as a tool collaborative work to promote oral production due to students’ lack of opportunities for practicing this productive skill and the generation of new ideas that raise from different critical thinking processes. With this study, I wanted to find out what were the effects of integrating collaborative work as a way to promote students’ critical thinking and oral production in English class. Therefore, I selected an action research as strategy to explore, understand a phenomenon, in this case, critical thinking, and then to implement a pattern of activities that involved the use of collaborative work.. Description of the Setting The setting chosen for this study was the public school ‘San Pedro Claver’, it is located in the south of Bogotá, in ‘Kennedy’ neighborhood. This is a very commercial place, which social stratum is framed into two and three. The school has also a library, a computers’ room, a sports field and a teachers’ room. The school offers a co-educated education from the first to the fifth cycle with the purpose of building integral human beings with a very high cognitive and socio-affective development, through an interdisciplinary curriculum. This has an emphasis of the communicative field articulating analysis, critical and productive processes. This aims to provide students the tool for reinforcing citizen competences. It also has as purpose to offer an integral formation, to promote.

(39) . 39. OPENING MINDS: COLLABORATIVE WORK TO PROMOTE STUDENTS’ CRITICAL THINKING AND ORAL PRODUCTION IN ENGLISH CLASSES. a learning based on intellectual, personal and organizational competences and, to elevate the quality of education.. Participants’ Profile The profile of participants chosen for this study were 32 students of tenth grade (between fourteen and sixteen years old) with the support of the head teacher John. According to the need analysis and the observations made during the practicum, these students show a high interest for English Language and they are aware towards the importance of English because of different opportunities that it offers for their life and for their own personal achievements. Most of them recognize that the most important skill to develop in English is speaking and, they know it is the least practiced in the classes. Although all the pedagogical activities were implemented for the whole group, I selected different students to collect data and to analyze all their process. The method to select the participants was a purposeful selection, also called judgment selection. According to Marshall (1996) and Hennink, Hutter & Bailey (2011), this selection consists of the selection of the most productive sample or participants to answer the research question. The participants chosen were observed previously and according to the need analysis provided, they had certain characteristics that redefined better the purpose of the study such as the interest to speak and, to discuss about controversial topics being aware of the importance of being a critical thinker..

(40) . 40. OPENING MINDS: COLLABORATIVE WORK TO PROMOTE STUDENTS’ CRITICAL THINKING AND ORAL PRODUCTION IN ENGLISH CLASSES. The parents of the students of the group signed a consent form in which, they accepted the participation of their son/daughter in the action research project, as well as the permission to allow me to collect data. (see annex 3).. Data Collection Method The mainly method used for this research was the observation. Observation. According to Seliger & Shohamy (1989) & Burns (1999) this is a descriptive data collection to note, describe and reflect the behavior and the interactions produced and, that are interested in the research. Also, observation is a very good way to identify from general to more specific, in the sense that, a process of ‘just looking’, and following it, provides the opportunity to identify more specific situations, behaviors and interactions than the ones that were seen in the very first observation. This instrument was used to gather perceptions of the students towards the development of the classes through the collaborative work and their performance of oral production. Data Collection Instruments To develop this action research, different instruments were used to collect the necessary data in order to answer the research question. Taking this into account, five main data collection.

(41) . 41. OPENING MINDS: COLLABORATIVE WORK TO PROMOTE STUDENTS’ CRITICAL THINKING AND ORAL PRODUCTION IN ENGLISH CLASSES. instruments were used: field notes, need analysis, interviewing through a quetionnaire, students’ documentation through the artfacts and an assessment rubric.. Field notes. This is a useful instrument that is used to print in words non-verbal information in the most objective way. Burns (1999) state that these hand writings report what is happening like the physical setting, the groups structures as well the dynamics produced inside them, and the interaction with other groups. It also gives a view that can be of one student or the whole group. For this, it is necessary to use WH questions to answer some specific questions that guide the writing process like Burns (1999) proposes: who/what/where/when/how/why. This instrument was used as a strategy to put into words what happened in the classroom while students were discussing about the topics proposed and, it also allowed me to follow a diary to follow a sequence. (see annex 4) Need analysis. According to Brown (1995), this is a way to gather data of subjective and objective aspects to collect specific information that is necessary in order to satisfy claims of the language learning in the students according to the contexts. For the need analysis, I took into account two main aspects: critical thinking and oral production to know things like how many students were interested in doing critical thinking process, or what the importance of English was in their lives. (see annex 5)..

(42) . 42. OPENING MINDS: COLLABORATIVE WORK TO PROMOTE STUDENTS’ CRITICAL THINKING AND ORAL PRODUCTION IN ENGLISH CLASSES. Questionnaire. According to Seliger & Shohamy (1989), it is a very useful way to collect data from large groups making more effective the process of data collection. The type of questions can be narrowed or amplified in order to get many answers to analyze later. As it was an action research study, it was very relevant to listen the students’ voices where by themselves, they could explain what they thought at the end the study, if they felt any change in the classes through the use of critical thinking process in their process learning, if they changed that they had more opportunities to practice their speaking and so on. (see annex 6). Students’ artifacts. According to Hubbard & Miller (1999), students’ artifacts are some of the richest sources for teachers-researchers because a student’ artifact is tangible evidence of what students are able to do in a range of responses that students make upon different learning tasks, this is data that is not seen from the teacher-researcher view, but the point of view of the students. With students’ artifacts, it was possible to display students’ perceptions, opinions and thoughts of each process of critical thinking according to the tasks proposed in each lesson to answer the research question. Assessment Rubric. According to Goggins, M. (2013) this is a very useful instrument to display the behavior and the outcomes that students achieve, in this part, the quantitative data starts and, that can reflect something beyond of interactions. An assessment rubric should have tangible and observable.

(43) . 43. OPENING MINDS: COLLABORATIVE WORK TO PROMOTE STUDENTS’ CRITICAL THINKING AND ORAL PRODUCTION IN ENGLISH CLASSES. elements to be evaluated in an objective way. This instrument was used in order to asses the oral production that students did during their presentation in the sense of a formative assessment where students could see the strengthens and weaknesses while using the language. (see annex 7). Type of Data For this study, I collected observable data through the instruments. It means that I could collect physical evidence of the phenomenon of critical thinking and oral production along the research instruction in order to gather and keep the process that they made, and the change of perceptions generated. Finally, it is presented the schedule proposed for collecting data..

(44) . 44. OPENING MINDS: COLLABORATIVE WORK TO PROMOTE STUDENTS’ CRITICAL THINKING AND ORAL PRODUCTION IN ENGLISH CLASSES. Unit of Analysis This will be based on the speeches produced by the students of their thought about the topics proposed during the classes.. Validity & Reliability Validity is an important issue taken for this research. According to Taylor (2013), this concept is understood as the degree of validity of the evidence that researchers have, in order to, state the knowledge they claim as valid and, that truly corresponds to the reality (or the research participants’ constructions of reality). Validity provides an opportunity to researchers to confirm that the information collected, and the inferences are objectively taken. Sometimes, the need of confirming one idea or hypothesis takes to the researchers to manipulate the information, either consciously or unconsciously. In this sense, it was necessary from the research to valid that the instruments were applied properly and, with no changes in the use of each one of them. On the other hand, as Brink (1993) mentions, reliability is ‘concerned with the consistency, stability and repeatability of the informants’ accounts as well as the investigator’s ability to collect data and record information accurately’. It means that, as the validity was confirmed in the research and, non instrument was manipulated or changed its nature. The same research idea or hypothesis can be proved in other contexts that have similarities, like the population, the setting and, the most important part, the instruments can be used more than once obtaining the same answers of the very first research..

(45) . 45. OPENING MINDS: COLLABORATIVE WORK TO PROMOTE STUDENTS’ CRITICAL THINKING AND ORAL PRODUCTION IN ENGLISH CLASSES. There are some strategies for validity and reliability proposed by Brink (1993) and, that were followed during the process: (1) by making sure that informants are very clear on the nature of the research eg. why the researcher is there, what he is studying, how he will collect data and what he will do with it. This process was done at the beginning of the process, students understood the purpose of the research, what I was going to do, and the process during they would follow while I was there. (2) by first building a trust-relationship with the subjects and staying in that setting for a long period of time. Before the project got started, I stayed in previous classes, first as an observer, and then as an assistant of the head teacher. (3) by interviewing the same informant on several occasions and making observations more than once and over time. The need analysis and questionnaire used at the beginning and at the end of the process provided validity to see if there was any change. (4) by comparing the results obtained with other evidence. Both field notes and observations are very useful instruments to corroborate the ideas and compare if any change happened. (5) by confirming findings and analysis with informant (the danger with this technique is that subjects may become sensitized to the researcher’s inferences and provide the answer that support the researcher’s point). An open paper was asked at the end of the.

(46) . 46. OPENING MINDS: COLLABORATIVE WORK TO PROMOTE STUDENTS’ CRITICAL THINKING AND ORAL PRODUCTION IN ENGLISH CLASSES. process anonymously, where students could share their opinion about the classes taking into account the critical thinking process and the oral production. (see annex 7) (6) by keeping accurate and detailed field notes to note the variations in^ responses over the course of time. Field notes were done in every class. On the other hand, a triangulation was created in order to decrease researcher bias. Also, to check the congruence among the three constructs..

(47) . 47. OPENING MINDS: COLLABORATIVE WORK TO PROMOTE STUDENTS’ CRITICAL THINKING AND ORAL PRODUCTION IN ENGLISH CLASSES. Chapter Four Instructional Design. This chapter presents and illustrates a plan of teaching and learning. It consists of explaining and describing the curriculum platform and the innovative pedagogical intervention using Communicative approach as the action plan. It also describes the methodology that guides learning and language learning presented through an account of the processes, practices and a general chart. It ends with a brief description of the achievements and the criteria for evaluation.. Setting This study was carried at a public school in Bogotá. It is located in the south of Bogotá, in Kennedy. It is surrounded by several commercial places in which social stratum is framed into two and three. On the other hand, the classroom is distributed in 7 rows. A TV, and a blackboard also compose this.. Population The population chosen for this study was a tenth grade. Composed by 32 students who were between the age of fourteen and sixteen years old, finding 16 girls and 14 boys who present a good behavior in the classes considered as one the best courses of the school with a high interest on the learning of English language..

(48) . 48. OPENING MINDS: COLLABORATIVE WORK TO PROMOTE STUDENTS’ CRITICAL THINKING AND ORAL PRODUCTION IN ENGLISH CLASSES. Curriculum Platform. Educational View. Progressivism was the theory of education proposed for this research. According to Dewey (as cited in Radu (2011)), this theory consists of a movement reacting against the traditional American schools, where the economy and other issues had the aim to prepare students for life, but for Dewey, the school is the life itself. In this sense, learning is a means of learning by doing,.

(49) . 49. OPENING MINDS: COLLABORATIVE WORK TO PROMOTE STUDENTS’ CRITICAL THINKING AND ORAL PRODUCTION IN ENGLISH CLASSES. to acquire knowledge by experimenting. From this, the Progressivism has two main aspects: the psychological and the sociological. The first one is very relevant and, it is a very innovative way to see education. Most of people think that education exists just in their childhood, and a part of their lives in order to work but, this is a whole process of reflection, of learning everyday, not necessarily in an institution, but through every situation that people face. The second one, including a problem solving method, that is the same methodology of the research, putting problems to students to be solved, first as individuals and then, as a community.. Theory of Curriculum. This project was based on the theory of Learner-Centered Curriculum. According to Nunan (1988), it is a collaborative effort where learners take part of their own learning process with the help of teacher in the decision-making of the class. The school where the research was carried, it has the mission of providing an integral formation of human beings; it also provides a high cognitive and socio-affective development. And for this, it is necessary to involve students in the school as the most important part of the school community and, to make them realize about this issue. The school is also based on an interdisciplinary curriculum structure with an emphasis on analytic and critic fields, to develop competences for an improvement of the life project and their context, where students have to take part on how to develop the curriculum, very similar to the educational view proposed by Dewey in this progressivism theory..

(50) . 50. OPENING MINDS: COLLABORATIVE WORK TO PROMOTE STUDENTS’ CRITICAL THINKING AND ORAL PRODUCTION IN ENGLISH CLASSES. Theory of Learning. The theory of learning goes from two visions: one general, conducting to a specific one. Constructivism was taken as the main theory of learning. According to Leonard (2002), this is based on observation and scientific study about how people learn. Leonard (2002) says that people construct their own understanding and prior knowledge of the world through experiencing things and reflecting on those experiences while, interacting with other people, that is how through collaboration people discuss, narrate and share their knowledge, that is where the specific vision goes: the collaborative. According to Dillenbourg (1999), the collaborative learning is ‘a situation in which two or more people learn or attempt to learn something together’, after all, that is the reason why there are schools, with courses which, are not just of one student, or one company just with one person, always collaboration makes learning more valuable. In this case, the classes were based on their previous knowledge, which consists of what they have learnt before not only in the school but also in their life, and through collaboration, they built new knowledge.. Theory of Language. The theory of language taken for this pedagogical intervention was the language as culture and ideology. According to Tudor (2001), language is not only a linguistic system based on function. The language also has two purposes related between each other. The first is to allow people to express themselves, their ideas as thoughts created through their life, once it has been.

(51) . 51. OPENING MINDS: COLLABORATIVE WORK TO PROMOTE STUDENTS’ CRITICAL THINKING AND ORAL PRODUCTION IN ENGLISH CLASSES. done, the second purpose is to express those ideas to a community with similar or different opinions, but that want to share their thoughts to interact and create ideologies or worldviews that were acquired through that interaction. This fits to the vision of the school which purpose, is to build integrate human beings to have good socio-affective relations with others, and to have authentic criteria towards any topic.. Innovative Pedagogical intervention The pedagogical intervention is innovative due to the main purpose of this study was to promote some oral production skills and students’ critical thinking with the use of collaborative work using controversial topics. It was in order to create a meaningful learning that helped students to take part of their own learning process, to improve the oral production and to create critical thinking processes that would help them not only for their classes but also for their lives. I created a pedagogical intervention with different task-based projects carried by the students.. Approach: Communicative Language Teaching. This approach consists of the reflection of a communicative view of language as well for the language learning. For this, this approach focuses on the communicative perspective of the language rather than the grammatical structures according to Littlewood (1981). This approach focuses on what people do with those structures, what are the purposes of people when speaking, what are their intentions, and what they can achieve when using the language. This approach has.

(52) . 52. OPENING MINDS: COLLABORATIVE WORK TO PROMOTE STUDENTS’ CRITICAL THINKING AND ORAL PRODUCTION IN ENGLISH CLASSES. a diverse set of principles that support how the classes should be structured in order to provide students opportunities to communicate in real life situations. Communicative Language teaching has the following principles Richard & Rodgers (2001): -Learners learn a language through using it to communicate -Authentic and meaningful communication should be the goal of classroom activities -Fluency is an important dimension of communication - Communication involves the integration of different language skills - Learning is a process of creative construction and involves trial and error. Instructional Objectives General objective. To guide students through task-based activities in order to facilitate opportunities to foster oral production. Specific Objectives. ● To plan sessions that involve the students’ language performance and collaborative work. ● To evaluate the weaknesses and strengths that students have through the rubric for oral production..