HOW TO LEARN CREATIVELY
Бұл мақалада сын тұрғысынан ойлау арқылы оқушылардың ағылшын тілін үйренудің түрлі әдіс-тәсілдері қарастырылған. Оқытушыларға қандай жолдармен үйретудің жолдары көрсетілген.
В этой статье предлагается различные методы работы для развития критического мышления у учащихся в изучении английского языка, а также каким образом можно их эффективно применять в разных группах.
Aims
To introduce you to creative aspects to learning – with a special emphasis on note-making, brainstorming and question matrixing.
Learning outcomes
It is hoped that by the end of working through this chapter you will have:
- Realized the importance of creative learning strategies
- Been introduced to note -making theory
- Been introduced to note-making practice- with the emphasis on creative, pattern notes
- Been introduced to creative assignment preparation techniques- the brainstorm and the question matrix.
Much of the advice given for us to active learning strategies, skills, techniques and practices is logical, rational and straightforward. Such techniques can turn learning and studying around for you so that your learning becomes effective, satisfying and successful. In this chapter we are taking this a step further. Logical strategies are fantastic, they will make all the difference in themselves – but really shine, to go that one step further, everyone also needs to build creatively into their learning.
Why should we be creative?
Some people do not see the need to be creative in their studies. Perhaps it just seems like more hard work, perhaps they think that their subject does not need creatively- maybe they feel that this is a whole new area that they wish would just go away and leave them alone! However, we have found that students really do benefit from creative thinking. For one thing, it can make things feel lighter, for another it stretches and develops another part of you – and this is agood thing in itself. However, we would like you to feel really positive about being creative when you study, so we have gathered a few arguments here – read them through and see what you think.
Use all your brain
Buzan’s work on the psychology of learning tells us that there are two parts of the brain, the logical left and the creative right. Learning strategies that are rational and logical work well with the left part of the brain, but this monotonous learning – as in monotone, one colour learning. He criticizes this learning as being ineffectual because it only utilizes one half of the brain – and this means it is both limiting and boring.
Play with it
Graham Gibbs, in this work on teaching students to learn, has another argument that connects to creative learning strategies. Gibbs tells us that the word ‘knowledge’, which has Greek and Norse roots, actually means to ‘have sport with ideas’, that is to play with ideas. If we cannot play with the ideas with which we are engaging as students, we will never be able to use them with confidence – hence we will not make them our own.
Typically when we approach new subjects we might be over-awed by them and a natural response.
Active and significant learning
All the way through this text we place an emphasis on you becoming an active learner in control of your own learning. However, it can be very easy to feel trapped by the very nature of academic practice. How can you say what you want what you have to say it in certain way or you have to read so many things before you can even give an opinion of your own?
Carl Rogers, humanist, psychologist and teacher, addressed this by emphasizing that significant learning takes place when students reach out for what they want and need when learning.
Common sense
One last justification that we would like to offer for creative learning also touches on the notion of active learning – or the lack of it. Without a creative approach the student is in danger of becoming a passive learner, only using information in the way that other people have used it. Because they have not used a creative note-making system, but have passively recorded what others have said, and the way that they have said it, these students get trapped into other people’s processes.
How can I be creative?
Some people believe that you are either born creative or you are not – the same way that much of education is predicated upon the belief that you are either born a good student or you are not. But everyone can rehearse successful study techniques and thus learn how to be a good student.
If you have not tried such kind of techniques before, we will be asking you to change or adapt your learning style. And as always, you might find that change uncomfortable. No one likes to be uncomfortable, even more so perhaps in the educational context where for so many of us everything already feels so strange and uncomfortable. Try to reassure yourself that the discomfort will pass, and that the benefits of these strategies in terms of improvements in your ability to study and learn – and in the grades that you will get for your work – will more than compensate you for the discomfort that you are experiencing.
Literature:
- Н.Д. Гальскова « Современная методика обучения иностранным языкам», Москва, 2004
- С.Бабаева, К. Казиева – «Педагогикалық инновациялар мен педагогикалық озат технологиялар – талапшаң мұғалім еншісі»
- Е.С. Полат «Методы обучения на уроках английского языка» ИЯШ, 2003