Integrating Critical Thinking Skills into the Exploration of Culture in an EFL Setting Syllabus

 [Spring Semester] April 12 - June 7, 2022

Instructor Information

Instructor

Wilma Luth

Communication

Please message me through the Canvas platform. As your instructor I will check the course on Canvas and my messages every day. I will try to answer questions quickly but please be patient as I might not be able to answer immediately. I will try to answer within 24 hours.

Course Overview

Description

Exploration of culture in an EFL setting requires helping students engage in authentic situations to develop the ability to navigate across a variety of cultures. This intercultural ability requires language choices and awareness of oneself as a cultural being. It also requires critical thinking skills, which are themselves culturally defined. Using experiential learning as the organizational model, this course will engage participants in analyzing personal experiences, media, EFL textbooks, and classrooms to develop the capacity to think critically about the cultural assumptions and viewpoints embedded in their teaching content and process. After examining themselves as cultural beings and assessing learners’ needs and goals, participants will develop a concrete teaching lesson that reflects their view of teaching critical thinking and intercultural competence in their particular context.

For technical support related to the course, please submit a request using the form on the course homepage. If you cannot access the course homepage, please submit a request to opensupport@fhi360.org.

Learning Objectives and Learner Outcomes

By the end of the eight-week course, participants will be able to:

• Define intercultural competence
• Define critical thinking
• Develop an increased understanding of experiential learning and its elements: observation, inquiry, multiple-perspective analysis, and self-reflection
• Further develop their ability to learn and teach intercultural competence
• Further develop their ability to learn and teach critical thinking
• Further develop their ability to learn and teach the skills of active listening and empathy
• Develop their own assumptions about the teaching of culture in their context
• Create lesson plans which integrate cultural learning and critical thinking
• Reflect on and critically analyze their lessons

Expectations and Grading

Expectations

This course aims to improve your intercultural competence and critical thinking skills. It also aims to improve your ability to teach these to your students. To do this, the course uses the model of experiential learning. In experiential learning, learning is based on real life experiences. We observe, think about and reflect on these experiences with more care and depth than usual. You are expected to reflect on cultural experiences, analyze them from multiple perspectives, and apply your learning to your life and your teaching.

Much of your exploration will be done through reading and writing, and you will share your ideas online with your classmates. We expect you to be respectful and polite to your classmates at all moments. Be careful not to make assumptions, as it could lead to accidentally offending a classmate. We also hope you will help your classmates further their thinking about culture and critical thinking by giving them thoughtful, constructive feedback. Because you are an essential part of your classmates’ experience in this class, responding to online discussions on time is especially important.

Netiquette

In the virtual classroom, learning is generated from active participation in discussion forums and free exchange of ideas and experiences. Therefore, when communicating on the discussion board it is important to adhere to a set of core principles which will help us increase the quality of online discussions, achieve group cohesion and maintain the community of practice, the key components of teacher professional growth:

1. Try to be clear and direct
   Make sure that your content title reflects the content of your post and that your post is succinct and direct.
2. Make it easier for colleagues to read your comments
   • Put a blank space at the beginning of a message and between paragraphs.
   • Be lean of expression. It takes considerable time and effort to read long messages. When writing a contribution, try to keep it within a 300-word limit. Your responses should preferably be up to 200 words.
3. Be constructive
   Respond to colleagues’ postings or comments in an encouraging and supportive tone. Think before you write or respond. Any criticism should be constructive—if in doubt, think about how you would feel reading a posting.
4. Be open to differences in opinion
   Be open to other people's opinions and try not to get emotional if someone disagrees with you. Make your learning experience a constructive and positive one by avoiding ‘flaming’. For example, capitals can be interpreted as shouting. Think before you push the ‘send’ button. Words are powerful and can hurt; avoid anything which could be misinterpreted in any way.
5. Accept others
   Accept your peers’ differences, e.g., cultural and language differences. You are part of a community which means caring about your own progress and that of your colleagues’.
6. Cite other people's work
   If you use a quote or reference in your post; make sure that you cite it or provide a link to it.
7. No spamming
   Please don’t send advertisements to your peers or use your peers’ emails in any way other than how they intend it to be used.

Time commitment

The course is designed so that, as necessary, you can do the majority of the coursework offline, working with materials you got from the course site. You will find links to these pdf files on the module overview pages.

You are expected to complete each module’s tasks during the week assigned. Turning in an assignment late will impact your grade. If you have a special situation come up which will affect your ability to turn work in on time for a while, you should notify your instructor.

Grading

This is a pass/fail course. Participants who receive at least a 70% overall score on all coursework within the time frame of the course will receive a certificate of achievement. Though some feedback will be faster, you can generally expect assignment feedback and grades to be given no later than one week after your submission.

Quizzes     15%
Most of the readings and videos are followed by a comprehension quiz. 15% of your grade is based on your score on these quizzes. You can take the quizzes as many times as you wish.

Participation in Online Discussions     35%
Every week you will participate in online discussions. You are expected to provide responses that are thoughtful, constructive, and polite.

Cascading New Knowledge     10%
In this course we explore ways to share what you are learning in this course with other professionals. Your responses to these assignments should show creativity and active participation.

Other Writing Assignments     20%
There will be other writing activities that are not part of class-wide discussion. Some will be public for your classmates to view, while others, including periodic reflections, will be sent only to your instructor. These activities should also demonstrate quality in reflection and analysis.

Final Lesson Plan and Learning Reflection     20%
During weeks 6-8 of the course, you will develop, teach and reflect on a lesson that demonstrates your ability to apply key learning from the course into your teaching.