Enhancing Critical Thinking in Malaysian Primary School Students through PLS Method
Journal Title: International Journal of Educational Methodology - Year 2018, Vol 4, Issue 4
Abstract
Pictologics (PLS) is a language teaching method which relies on imaginative usage of pictures. The current paper reports the effects of applying this method on enhancing critical thinking ability of the Malaysian students. 69 students (32 boys & 37 girls) in two classes in a public primary school in Penang, Malaysia participated in this study. The experiment covered ten 1-hour sessions which were all audio-recorded and video-taped. The main objective was to engage the students in short conversations in English by using new words that they were learning via PLS. The following qualitative instruments were employed in this study: interviews with the teachers, focus group interviews with the students, a group interview with students’ parents, class check-list of the students’ behavior during the sessions, photos, and video footages. The findings reveal significant patterns of critical thinking among the students such as recognizing and criticizing assumptions, giving reasons to support a conclusion, incorporating isolated data into a wider framework, and using analogies to solve problems. The author strongly recommends application of adopted PLS techniques to be used either alone, or combined with the other conventional language teaching methods.
Authors and Affiliations
Abolfazl Sasi
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP469408
- DOI 10.12973/ijem.4.4.243
- Views 87
- Downloads 0
The Influence of Active Learning on the Concept of Mastery of Sains Learning by Fifth Grade Students at Primary School
The research aims to know the effect of Active Learning on the concept of mastery of sains learning by fifth grade students at primary school. The method that is used in this research is a quasi-experimental research. Th...
Picture in Children's Story Books: Children's Perspective
The aim of this study is to collect and analyze children's comments on the pictures in children's story books. Four students studied in the first grade of a public primary school in Adana participated in the study. The r...
Evaluating and Improving Teacher Educators’ Language-Oriented Performance in Content-Based Teaching
In general, teacher educators are considered to be educational specialists whose main task is to communicate content-based concepts to prospective teachers. However, unfortunately, most studies on teacher professional de...
The Effect of Learning Cycle Models on Achievement of Students: A Meta-Analysis Study
In the study, a meta-analysis was conducted to determine the effect of the use of the learning cycle model on the achievements of the students. Doctorate and master theses, made between 2007 and 2016, were searched using...
Inuit Voices on Quality Education in Nunavut: Policy Implications
This paper is based on a research that explored how Inuit community members in Nunavut Territory, Canada, conceptualized quality education in the socio-cultural context of the territory. Data were collected through telep...