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Graphic Organizers
GILBERT C. ALVA
Promoting English Oral Communication Skills and Higher Order Thinking Skills through the Use of
Graphic Organizers
The ability to communicate effectively is one of the most important life skills students
need to acquire personally, socially, and more so professionally. Correct practice makes
perfect which means that teachers must provide learners with effective teaching strategies and
the right avenue to learn and apply principles of correct and meaningful oral communication.
Learners must develop oral language competence based on fluency, clarity, and sensitivity, to
advance themselves intellectually and communicatively which is most effective when they
are able to apply critical thinking or other higher order thinking skills in communication.
Higher Order Thinking Skills or known as HOTS has been one of education reforms
based on learning taxonomies where students are able to transfer their knowledge into actual
amongst many other strategies. In an effective language lesson, students should be spending
as much time using these strategies as they are learning new vocabulary and grammar rules.
Without them, they may know a lot of language, but be unable to use it in a meaningful way.
For a language based, HOTS can be defined in a number of different ways, but many
educators split them into 4 groups. First is the Application which involves problem-solving
and experimenting like experimenting with rhyming and syntax in poetry writing, solving a
mystery using clues, and performing role-plays. Second is Analysis which is comprised of
identifying patterns and organizing ideas where students can identify language structures in a
text in order to work out the rules for it, without the teacher simply presenting it. The third
group is called Synthesis and engages the students’ imagination and ability to predict or infer.
Students should be predicting the end of stories before they read them, trying to infer the
hidden meanings behind the author’s words and imagining other stories happening in the
same fantasy worlds. The final group, ‘evaluation’, covers the skills of assessing, comparing,
Promoting English Oral Communication Skills and Higher Order Thinking Skills through the Use of
Graphic Organizers
and judging merit. Participating in discussions and debates, rating study strategies, and
assessing their own work all help students to hone these abilities (British Council, 2018).
memorizing information such as grammar rules and words. It involves developing logical
steps to work through language tasks, assessing the situation or context in which they are to
complete a task, finding a solution to a problem and making judgments of their own
One of the teaching strategies to enhance higher order thinking among students is the
use of graphic organizers. It provides students with a great way to frame their thoughts in an
organized manner. By drawing diagrams or mind maps, students are able to better connect
concepts and see their relationships. This will help students develop a habit of connecting
concepts.
Graphic organizers are some of the most effective visual learning strategies for
students that can be applied to foster a myriad of educational objectives. They are also
sometimes referred to as knowledge maps, concept maps, story maps, cognitive organizers,
advance organizers, or concept diagrams. Charts, webs, concept maps, mind maps, stack plots
and Venn diagrams are some of the types of graphic organizers used in visual learning to
enhance thinking skills and improve academic performance on written papers, tests and
homework assignments. They can be used for a variety of educational purposes, including
sequencing events, analyzing cause and effect, comparing and contrasting, and developing
The main purpose of a graphic organizer is to provide a visual aid to facilitate learning
and instruction. Studies show that using graphic organizers improves student performance in
retention, reading comprehension, student achievement, and critical thinking skills. It allows
students to remember information better and can better recall it when it is represented and
learned both visually and verbally. Students with and without learning disabilities improve
achievement across content areas and grade levels and when students develop and use a
graphic organizer their higher order thinking and critical thinking skills are enhanced.
The significance and effectiveness of using graphic organizers were already proven in
previous studies. Teachers from different levels have been using this as a teaching and
learning tool that show organization of concepts as well as relationships between them into a
visual format. It is also one of the means in promoting higher order thinking skills. However,
teachers may sometimes struggle to implement higher order thinking skills because they have
the misconception that learners could not perform higher levels of cognition until their
English proficiency is more advanced. HOTS have more to do with the type of activity
presented and how effectively it is scaffolded and much less to do with how much language
proficiency a student has. With the help of visuals, realia, peer interaction, and larger tasks
broken down into concrete steps, language learners can and will perform at all levels of
cognition.
The purpose of this study is to enhance students’ English oral communication skills
and higher order thinking skills with the aid of graphic organizers. Because of the fact that
graphic organizers help the teacher teach complex issues, the success of using it lies on the
pedagogy and how it was applied and executed based from the lesson and learning objectives
of the subject. Thus, it aims to determine the effectiveness of graphic organizers as used by
teachers in their instructional strategies in promoting oral communication skills and higher
The study aims to promote English oral communication skills and higher order
thinking skills by using graphic organizers. Specifically, the objectives of the study are the
following:
3. Discover what English oral communication skills and higher order thinking skills of
communication skills and the ways in which the use of graphic organizers help the
6. Develop students’ English oral communication skills higher order thinking skills
promoting English oral communication skills and higher order thinking skills. The aspects
looked into are the English oral communication skills and higher order thinking skills of the
students that needed improvement, the instructional strategies teachers use in enhancing
English oral communication skills and the ways in which the use of graphic organizers help
the students in their learning while fostering higher order thinking skills.
Promoting English Oral Communication Skills and Higher Order Thinking Skills through the Use of
Graphic Organizers
City during the first semester of the scholastic year 2018-2019. The study is limited to two
classes of Grade 11 students; one class for the experimental group and the other one for the
control group. To meet the objectives of the study, a pre-test and post-test and field
Conceptual Framework
Independent variables
Effectiveness of graphic
Instructional strategies in organizers in promoting
enhancing English oral English oral communication
communication skills skills and higher order
thinking skills to students
Teachers’ pedagogical
practices using graphic
organizers to improve oral
communication skills and
foster higher order thinking
skills
Promoting English Oral Communication Skills and Higher Order Thinking Skills through the Use of
Graphic Organizers
The research paradigm of the study shows that the effectiveness of using graphic
organizers to promote English oral communication skills and higher order thinking skills is
dependent on the level of students’ English oral communication skills and higher order
thinking skills, strategic practices teachers use in teaching the subject, and the ways in which
the use of graphic organizers help the students in their learning. Further, the effective
instructional strategies and the successful use of graphic organizers can greatly influence
Students must be aware on the type of graphic organizer used for the discussion or
activity. They must be given time to practice using various graphic organizers properly.
Graphic organizers may be used when taking notes about new information in a lesson to
organize ideas, after reading a book to organize the plot, when comparing and contrasting two
concepts, as a way to help students classify new information into meaningful categories,
generate ideas before students begin an assignment, such as a writing task, a set of word
using generic rubrics based on the learning goal or objectives of the lesson.
Promoting English Oral Communication Skills and Higher Order Thinking Skills through the Use of
Graphic Organizers
successful citizen in the 21st century, students must be able to think critically and solve
problems. At the high school level, the future is at the forefront of each student’s mind.
Spending as much time as possible at the highest levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy will take
Students must understand the importance of using higher order thinking skills and
understand their own strengths and challenges. They must be encouraged to ask questions or
answer it themselves, or have them save the question until the following day. They must learn
how to connect one concept to another, usually what they already know with what they are
learning. Teachers must teach students to infer by giving “real-life” examples. They can also
use a step-by-step method for solving problems. This way of higher order thinking will help
Creative thinking is when students invent, imagine, and design what they are thinking.
Research shows that when students utilize creative higher order thinking skills, it indeed
increases their understanding. Therefore, they must be taught to think “Outside of the box.”
effective for higher-order thinking because students become more aware of the relationship
between the information in a text and their prior knowledge, which helps them decipher
Enhancing oral communication skills and higher order thinking skills through graphic
organizers
Promoting English Oral Communication Skills and Higher Order Thinking Skills through the Use of
Graphic Organizers
writing, and presenting. Teachers’ instructional strategies have a vital role to play in this
acquisition. They may use graphic organizers to present activities for pair or group outputs
depending on the learning objectives and outcomes of the lesson. Using graphic organizers is
one of effective instructional and learning strategies that can be used across grade levels and
subject areas, and can accommodate a range of student differences. Instructional strategies
that promote higher order thinking skills and enhance communication skills are cooperative
learning, group discussion, role-playing, film viewing, videotaping, reflective learning, group
presentations, and the like. These types of activities can make of use of graphic organizers to
help students understand the task being given. Students can use these cognitive organizers to
generate ideas, record and reorganize information, and see relationships. This will make
students make student thinking visible as they make student thinking audible through other
activities.