Ideas for Extending Thinking in World Languages Classroom

Toni Enloe
Apr 04, 2011

How can I challenge students to extend their thinking in the world languages classroom?

So much vocabulary and so little time!  This is the dilemma that many world language teachers face in first and second year language instruction. Adding the idea of extending thinking can become even more of a challenge for planning. 

Why extend thinking?

Extending Thinking questions, activities and tasks help move students beyond simple recall and identification. They should be structured in such a way that students have the opportunity to analyze situations, make comparisons, make predictions and inferences, and evaluate situations. It is important to always remember that students can’t extend something that they have not acquired.  Often times, there are missed opportunities to challenge thinking during the course of an Acquisition Lesson. 

Three Opportunities

1.  Assessment Prompts - During the course of instruction, Assessment Prompts may be designed to encourage students to push their thinking.  Example:  After a discussion of schools in the target culture, students compare target culture to United States schools.  Students are required to the vocabulary of the target language.

Question Stems for Assessment Prompts

  1. How does ____ affect ____?

  2. Explain why/ how ……?

  3. What would happen if…..?

  4. What is the difference between…..?

  5. How can I use….to……?

2.  Assignments -  Assignments should be used to reinforce student learning by having students “put it all together.”  Thoughtfully prepared assignments can provide a great opportunity for students to take their learning to the next level. Example: Study advertisements (clothing, cell phones, cars) from the target culture and the US. Based on your comparisons and the patterns that you see, make a generalization about what about the values of each culture. Make sure that you use the key vocabulary from the target language in your generalization.

3.  Summarizing Strategies - When Summarizing Strategies are purposefully planned, they allow students to move beyond simple facts toward application of the information. Example: After a lesson on words used for sequencing, determine what is out of sequence and tell how you know.

When do I extend thinking?

How do I know when to extend thinking? 

  1. A good place to begin is by looking at the standards.  What does the standard say?  What will students be expected to do?  Example: Standard Indicator Use the target language to exchange opinions and beliefs with others.  To show mastery of this performance indicator, students will need to know vocabulary used to exchange personal information (e.g., names, home addresses, telephone numbers, e-mail addresses) and be able to exchange information on topics of personal interest. 

  2. Use past performance data.  With what concepts or skills have students in the past, struggled? 

  3. Identify the top mistakes that foreign language students make and design questions, activities and tasks that scaffold and extend their learning. 

Example:  Assuming that Spanish words that look like English words mean the same thing

Ask students to create skits based on words on the false cognates list and the misunderstandings they might cause. The humor will help students remember the correct translation. (Sample from Teaching Activities and a Lesson Plan for False Cognates in Spanish, http://www.brighthub.com/education/languages/articles/37385.aspx)

REMEMBER:  70% of newly acquired information goes into short term memory unless we find a way to help students solidify the new learning.

Beyond Error Analysis: A Few More Ideas Worth Sharing

1.  Odd One Out (adapted from Thinking Through Modern Foreign Language)

 Why do we do it?   In this activity students are asked to look for relationships by comparing and contrasting and/or classifying and categorizing words, phrases, or sentences, focusing on the relationships that exist among them. How do we do it?  Identify the particular skills or concepts that you want students to develop. Select three or four words, phrases, sentences or pictures.  In pairs, students identify the “Odd One Out” and tell why and what the others have in common. What Outcome?  When selecting the three or four words, phrases, sentences or pictures there should be more than one correct answer.  This forces students to critically examine the attributes and look for relationships both among and between items. Example: Item Set – l’auberge di jeunesse, un terrain de camping, l’hôtel de ville

Once students have identified the pattern(s), they should add one more phrase, switch with another pair and ask which is the “Odd One Out” and why.

2.  Picture This  – Pairs of students create a visual representation of a topic or an idea.  Using the target language, discuss with another pair why the picture represents the topic or idea.

3.  Letter to a friend - In a friendly letter format, students paraphrase in the target language what they are learning by highlighting the relationships between the new information and their everyday activities.

4.  Classify This! – Students classify areas of language and explain the reasons for their categories.

5.  Unlocking the Mystery – Students underline the cognates in a piece of text in the target language.  They then predict what the story is about.

For more ideas on how to extend student thinking, check out the following Learning-Focused Solutions:
Learning-Focused Strategies Model: Connecting Extending Thinking book and flipchart
What Moves You: How to Get the Most From Planning for Instructing Higher Level Thinking
Unit and Lesson Planning Support Guide: Conferencing to Success
Differentiated Assignments K-5 or 6-12

Each solution offers suggestions for moving students toward higher level thinking.