Shadowing Practice: Critical Thinking Lecture: an introduction to critical thinking - Learn English Speaking with Video

Creando lección...
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Hello and welcome to my short lecture today on an introduction to critical thinking at university.
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So just to begin, I think I should say
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that critical thinking is a huge area and to cover all elements will take a significant amount of time,
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so I'm just going to look at the basic key aspects associated with reading and writing at university.
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Now I've divided my lecture today into five key parts.
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I'll begin by defining critical thinking, then I'll use recent research to discuss alternative thinking styles.
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I'll then use Bloom's Taxonomy to highlight higher order thinking skills,
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which leads into a simple approach to help activate your critical thinking.
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And finally, I'll demonstrate critical thinking questioning on this lecture.
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OK, so let's begin with a definition.
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Thank you.
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Critical thinking is a systematic evaluation of the arguments, ideas and theories of others.
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The basic premise of critical thinking involves asking critical questions to form an educated opinion of whether
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or not those resources are credible.
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On a basic level, we are questioning the things we read and hear to see if they are objective
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truthful and supported by appropriate evidence.
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However, one of the main challenges is
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that each of us carries a set of beliefs and opinions that may interfere with our willingness to alter these beliefs,
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even when faced with concrete evidence that refutes them.
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Generally, everyone has an opinion about most things, but of course these opinions can be founded in unreliable and invalid information.
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OK, so moving on to my second point, which is alternative thinking styles.
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I'm going to refer to the research by Brown
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and Keely 2013 as in my opinion their analogy provides a clear explanation of thinking types.
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So, according to them, there are two distinct thinking styles: the sponge and panning for gold.
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So, the sponge involves the basic premise of passively absorbing information without the use of critical thinking.
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The two benefits of this style are
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that the person can absorb large amounts of information to view the world from different perspectives
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and it does not require huge amounts of mental exertion.
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However, this process of thinking offers no dependable procedure for determining which opinions or information to trust and which ones to reject.
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The second approach which is referred to as panning for gold
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uses the river mining metaphor of separating particles of gold from soil by washing in a pan with water.
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It highlights that critical thinking is carefully inspecting and examining the information you read.
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This process is beneficial as it asks active readers
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and listeners to frequently ask critical questions and take time to contemplate whether the information is reliable and factual.
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Obviously, this type of thinking is challenging and often repetitive,
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but failure to do this will lead to a passive acceptance of ideas without critical analysis.
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Okay, this leads nicely into Bloom's taxonomy.
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This is a classification pyramid of learning levels which maps the way we think and process information.
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The lower levels of learning are remembering, understanding and applying.
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These can be seen as the sponge or lower order thinking skills, where information is given and absorbed.
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The higher order thinking skills are analysing, evaluating and creating.
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These are planning for gold or your critical thinking skills.
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So let's focus on the higher order thinking skills starting with analysing.
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So, analysing is breaking the information down into separate components and looking for relationships between ideas and overall structures.
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Through analysing content, you will recognise unstated assumptions, logical reasoning and relevancy of data.
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So, at this level, you can answer questions like why, how and what if.
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Moving on to Evaluating.
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Evaluating is judging, assessing and criticising information through using what you know to make a decision and support your views.
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To be successful at this, you need a profound understanding of the topic or idea you are evaluating.
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At this level you can answer questions like "So what?" and "What's next?"
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Creating is the highest level where you combine all elements of the taxonomy to produce new or original work.
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It requires inventiveness and originality to form new opinions and structures.
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At this level you can answer questions like: How can it be improved or how can it be changed or adapted?
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Now, there are many critical thinking question sheets and resources on the internet
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and in your universities that are all very beneficial and helpful.
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But, I find it more productive to focus on analysing
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and evaluating rather than going through a whole list of questions
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every time I find a point in a text I want to question.
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So, my advice is this: when starting out with critical thinking, just use the simple question tools of analysing which are why,
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how and what if.
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and evaluating which are 'so what' and 'what's next'.
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This keeps your critical thinking strategies simple, focused and effective.
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And more importantly, Analysis and evaluation are key components of university assessment criteria.
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However, it is important to remember that critical thinking is a higher level skill and needs time to develop and mature.
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It is not something you will become good at overnight as it can take months
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or even years of practice to fully develop this skill.
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In fact, recent research by Stanford University 2018 states that critical thinking is a lifelong process.
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Okay.
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So now I'm going to demonstrate how you may apply the critical thinking questioning of analysing and evaluating to this lecture today.
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So let's start with analysing and the why questions.
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The kind of questions you may ask could be, why did he do this lecture?
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Why did he choose the Brown and Keely research and Bloom's taxonomy?
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Why were only three sources used?
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And then you go on to the how questions.
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Possible questions are: How do we know this is reliable?
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How is this similar to other critical thinking concepts?
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How does this apply to me and my university study?
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And then the what if questions.
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Examples are: What if these concepts are wrong?
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And what if it is too simplistic?
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Then we move on to the evaluating questions.
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And examples of so what would be Is this significant to me?
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Is this convincing?
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Do I agree?
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What's wrong with it?
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And then the what's next questions such as, will I use what I have learnt today?
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How can it be improved?
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And has this been disproved?
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Okay, let's move on to the summary.
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So today I have provided a basic definition of critical thinking.
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I've used recent research to highlight the two alternative thinking styles of the sponge and panning for gold.
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I focused on Bloom's taxonomy pyramid and drawn attention to the top three levels of higher thinking skills.
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And in this part, I have focused on the importance of questioning words like Why,
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How, What If, So What and What's Next to aid critical analysis.
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The last part was to apply the higher thinking skills to today's lecture.
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So, I hope today's lecture has been really beneficial in simplifying critical thinking skills for use in reading and writing at university.
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My final point today is that I'd like to finish with something that was mentioned earlier.
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It is to try to be consciously aware of our own beliefs and preconceived opinions, as these are the thoughts that prevent true criticality.
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Thank you for listening to my lecture today.
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Goodbye.
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Thank you.
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Thank you.
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Thank you.

Vocabulario y notas de pronunciación para esta lección

Esta lección de conversación de nivel C1 se basa en el vídeo “Critical Thinking Lecture: an introduction to critical thinking”. Las palabras que más se repiten: thinking, critical, skill, analysing, evaluating. Este vídeo tiene 103 frases y 1238 palabras para practicar shadowing. La parte hablada dura 9:57. El hablante mantiene un ritmo constante de unas 124 palabras por minuto, cómodo para el shadowing. El 82 % de las palabras está entre las 3.000 más comunes del inglés; conviene repasar el resto antes de empezar. 16 de sus 103 frases son preguntas, así que sirve para practicar la entonación de las preguntas y las respuestas cortas.

Vocabulario clave de este vídeo

Las 15 palabras más avanzadas del vídeo, con su pronunciación y significado:

PalabraPronunciaciónSignificado
evaluate verbo/ɪˈvaljʊeɪt/evaluar
taxonomy sustantivo/tækˈsɑnəmi/taxonomía
sponge sustantivo/spʌnd͡ʒ/esponja
absorb verbo/æbˈsɔɹb/absorber
beneficial adjetivo/ˌbɛn.ɪˈfɪʃ.əl/beneficioso
pyramid sustantivo/ˈpɪɹ.ə.mɪd/pirámide
premise sustantivo/ˈpɹɛm.ɪs/premisa
contemplate verbo/ˈkɑn.təmˌpleɪt/contemplar
criterion sustantivo/kɹaɪˈtɪɹ.i.ən/criterio, criteriómetro (foundationless)
criticality sustantivo/ˈkɹɪtɪˌkælɪti/criticidad
dependable adjetivo[dɪˈpɛndəbəɫ]fiable, firme
disprove verbo/dɪsˈpɹuv/refutar, rebatir
exertion sustantivo/ɪɡˈzɝʃən/esfuerzo, ejercicio
inventiveness sustantivoinventiva, ingenio
originality sustantivo/əˌɹɪd͡ʒɪˈnælɪti/originalidad

Phrasal verbs que vas a escuchar

PalabraSignificado
go through verboatravesar

Gramática en este vídeo

Las estructuras que más usa el hablante, con las palabras exactas del vídeo:

EstructuraEn el vídeo
Voz pasiva be + participio pasado — importa lo que ocurre, no quién lo hacecan be founded · is referred · can be seen
Present perfect have/has + participio pasado — una acción pasada que sigue importando ahoraI've divided · have learnt · have provided
Oraciones de relativo who / which + oración — información extra sobre una persona o cosapoint, which is · approach which is · analysing which are

Pronunciación a tener en cuenta

El hablante usa 10 contracciones y formas reducidas, como I'll, I'm, I've. Dilas en su forma corta, tal como las oyes.

  • Los sonidos de “sh” y “zh”: beneficial /ˌbɛn.ɪˈfɪʃ.əl/, exertion /ɪɡˈzɝʃən/, assumption /əˈsʌm(p).ʃ(ə)n/
  • Palabras largas — cuida el acento: taxonomy /tækˈsɑnəmi/, beneficial /ˌbɛn.ɪˈfɪʃ.əl/, criterion /kɹaɪˈtɪɹ.i.ən/, criticality /ˈkɹɪtɪˌkælɪti/, dependable [dɪˈpɛndəbəɫ]

Sonidos difíciles para hispanohablantes:

  • /v/ — no es /b/: los dientes tocan el labio inferior: evaluate /ɪˈvaljʊeɪt/, disprove /dɪsˈpɹuv/, passively /ˈpæs.ɪv.li/, preconceived /ˌpɹiːkənˈsiːvd/, relevancy /ˈɹɛlɪvənsi/
  • /dʒ/ — no es la “y” ni la “ch”: sponge /spʌnd͡ʒ/, originality /əˌɹɪd͡ʒɪˈnælɪti/, analogy /əˈnæləd͡ʒi/, educate /ˈɛd͡ʒ.əˌkeɪt/

Cómo practicar con este vídeo

  1. Escucha el vídeo entero una vez sin hablar y anota las palabras que no conoces.
  2. Haz shadowing frase por frase a velocidad normal, repitiendo cada una hasta que tu ritmo coincida con el del hablante.
  3. Grábate y compara con el original, prestando atención a palabras como evaluate, taxonomy, sponge.

¿Qué es la Técnica de Shadowing?

Shadowing es una técnica de aprendizaje de idiomas respaldada por la ciencia, desarrollada originalmente para la formación de intérpretes profesionales y popularizada por el políglota Dr. Alexander Arguelles. El método es simple pero poderoso: escuchas audio en inglés nativo y lo repites en voz alta de inmediato, como una sombra que sigue al hablante con solo 1-2 segundos de retraso. A diferencia de la escucha pasiva o los ejercicios de gramática, el shadowing obliga a tu cerebro y músculos de la boca a procesar y reproducir simultáneamente patrones de habla reales. Las investigaciones muestran que mejora significativamente la precisión de la pronunciación, la entonación, el ritmo, el habla conectada, la comprensión auditiva y la fluidez al hablar, convirtiéndola en una de las metodologías más efectivas para la preparación del IELTS Speaking y la comunicación en inglés en el mundo real.

Técnica de shadowing: lee la guía completa paso a paso →