How can teachers link language learning and communicative competence with Bloom’s thinking skills?

Benjamin Bloom was an educational psychologist and the first to develop a hierarchy of six thinking skills. Since 1956, Bloom’s Taxonomy has served as a guide for teachers to think about how they can design lessons that will help their students to think critically. In addition, Bloom’s Taxonomy has had a tremendous influence in assisting teacher of any subject matter to design instructional activities that cover the six levels of the hierarchy.

Teachers can link language learning and communicative competence in a foreign language with Bloom’s thinking skills following their hierarchy of six levels. It’s important to note that each step requires a higher level of thinking and Bloom’s taxonomy can be followed and adapted for every subject and level, even at the elementary level.

On the most basic level, knowledge, students have to recall information about a topic and they are asked to identify vocabulary and define terms of this topic. On the second level, comprehension, students will understand information about the lesson. Teachers can prepare a power point presentation to encourage their students to speak in class.

At the next two levels, application and analysis, students will have to apply and analyze knowledge, using knowledge gained in previous levels to solve problems and analyze information. For example, teachers can prepare a debate activity about a situation to improve the communicative competence of their students.

On the fifth level, synthesis, students create a product on the basis of given criteria, making an oral presentation o writing an essay about one topic of the lesson, for instance. And finally, on the highest level of Bloom’s Taxonomy, evaluation, teachers challenge students to develop high-level critical thinking skills and students are asked to make options and provide evidence for those options.

In conclusion, there is a fundamental difference between teaching content through a foreign language and in a foreign language because it implies integration of content and language leaning. Bloom’s taxonomy is a tool to promote high-order thinking skills and the link with language learning.