Why?
How?
These are important questions.
My name is Oliver and welcome back to the Easy English Podcast.
The best place to learn English through practicing your listening skills while learning new vocabulary and phrases.
And today's episode, we are going to talk about a very powerful skill.
And this helps us in every part of our lives.
And that skill is called critical thinking.
This isn't just for school or for scientists or students.
It's for everyone, every single day.
Critical thinking is simply the skill of thinking clearly and carefully so that you can make good decisions and also so that you can understand the world better.
The best way to start practicing is by asking two simple questions that we will look at a little bit more in detail why and how?
Today, you are going to learn what critical thinking actually is and how to apply it to life, as well as English learning.
So stick around and you're going to learn new words and how to do some useful critical thinking.
As always, let's take a look at our key vocabulary for this episode.
And that is the five useful words or phrases which I want you to listen for during this episode.
The first word is, of course, critical thinking.
We are, well, first phrase is critical thinking.
And we are going to look at what it is in more detail, but the simple definition is the process of thinking carefully and clearly to make a good decision or judgment.
The second word for today is evaluate, evaluate.
And this is a verb, it's a great verb.
And it means to judge or decide the value or quality of something after thinking about it carefully.
For example, I evaluated whether it was a good idea or not.
The third word for today is perspective.
Perspective.
And perspective is a simple or is quite a simple word, I would say.
It simply means a particular way of thinking about something.
You can also have a simple perspective.
It means to think about something in a simple way.
You may have a similar word in your language that might sound a little bit similar.
I know in Russian it sounds a little bit similar too.
Our fourth word today is source.
Source.
And this is a noun.
And it means the place or person where information comes from.
It can also mean fun little fact.
It can also mean the source of a river or some water.
So where it comes from.
But in this case, we are using it as the place where the information comes from.
And our final word for today is assumption.
Assumption.
And this is something that you believe to be true without proof.
OK, so keep all of these words and the phrase in mind as we listen to today's episode.
If you don't understand maybe one or two of them, don't worry, that's OK.
Just practice listening for them anyway.
You will also be hearing these words used in context, which can really help you to learn words and phrases.
That's also why, and I'm going to advertise it again, I made my new book, Phrasal Verbs Are Easy.
This book teaches you English phrasal verbs through the use of short stories to teach you the verbs in context to help you remember, understand and learn them.
So if you'd like to pick up a copy of this ebook, you can get the link in the description below.
Now...
Let's get started on our main episode.
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So what exactly is critical thinking?
It's not about being negative or just criticizing things.
It isn't critical as such.
Like you're not necessarily saying that things are bad or pointing out the problems.
This is sometimes what people think critical thinking is, but it's not.
It's fundamentally about being thoughtful, right?
Being thoughtful.
It's not about accepting information without first thinking about it.
Think about it like this.
When you read something online, do you immediately believe it?
Or do you ask yourself, is this really true?
That little pause is the first step in critical thinking.
That pause to stop and think.
And the two most important questions to ask are why?
So why is this a good idea?
Why should I believe this?
Why am I seeing this or why am I hearing this?
Why do they think that?
And the second most important question to ask is how?
How?
So my pronunciation, my pronunciation of this word might be a little bit different because again, as I've said before, I have a more northern accent.
So I say it like how?
Whereas someone from London or the South of England say it a little bit softer, like how, how.
So if you think it sounds a bit different, that's why, don't worry.
And with how, you can ask, you know, how do they know this information?
How do they know it's true?
How does it work?
Let's practice by applying critical thinking to simple everyday situations.
We'll maybe take one example and work with it.
Imagine you're on social media and you see a claim that says this new vitamin will make you lose five kilograms in one week.
This is the crazy claim, the crazy thing that this post is saying.
They are telling you that this is true.
A person without any critical thinking will just believe it and possibly buy the product and think wow, this is amazing, this looks so cool.
But a person that thinks critically will stop and ask questions before they believe it and before they simply accept the information.
They'll ask why.
So your first question should be, why would this be true?
Is it possible to learn to lose five kilograms so quickly, for example?
And is that even healthy?
This question will make you think about what you already know about health and weight loss.
The second question would be how.
How do they know this?
This might lead you to start thinking about the source of the information.
So who is making the claim?
Is it a doctor?
Do they have a study?
Is it the company that is making up this claim?
So how do they know that it's true?
The next important step with critical thinking is considering other perspectives.
So then you should ask, you know, is there another perspective?
Maybe this company is just trying really hard to sell this product and to claim the benefits that they say may not be completely honest.
It could be to try and sell it.
So you shouldn't just make the assumption that the claim is true.
You should look at alternate perspectives.
Even if at first you think, yeah that makes sense.
And finally, the most important step at the end is to evaluate the evidence.
So you want to evaluate all of the information that you have.
In this case, the claim is too good to be true about these vitamins.
The source is not a trusted expert and they don't have any real proof or studies to back up the claim.
So you would decide in this case that the claim is probably false or at the least very misleading.
And this simple process helps you to make a better, more logical decision instead of an emotional one.
But you can also use critical thinking to help you learn English better.
Instead of just memorizing a list of grammar rules, you could sit and ask yourself the same following process.
You might first ask, why is this grammar rule important?
And it helps you first understand the reason behind the rule, the reason about why you do this, and it makes it easier to remember.
You can then ask, how does this word change the meaning of the sentence?
So this helps you to understand the nuance of vocabulary.
So understanding how a word or a piece of vocabulary can change and affect other words too.
And finally, what is the source of the information?
So you want to make sure that the English information that you're getting whether it's vocabulary, grammar or whatever you're learning you want to make sure that it comes from a good source.
And this is very true.
I have heard many students say sayings or idioms that they think are very common in England, in the UK, but in reality no one really says them.
So you want to make sure that the source of the information is good and it's real and realistic in 2025.
Of course, you don't want to be speaking english like you're from the 1900s.
Right, and by thinking more critically about what you're learning, You stop being a more passive learner and you become an active learner, which I think will make you a more successful English learner in the long term.
So for today's listener spotlight, I think a number and number of weeks ago I asked about why, or a time when someone had to use critical thinking.
And I've asked some students for some examples of times when they had to use critical thinking.
And I'm going to read them to you now.
And then I want you at the end to answer in the comments below.
You can answer either in the comments or you can send me a message with your answer about a time where you had to use critical thinking to solve a problem.
It can be to understand if something is real or true and that type of thing.
So let's read the examples that I have.
So first up, i had maria, from brazil and she said i wanted to buy a very cheap flight ticket.
I saw on a website but i used critical thinking and asked why is it so cheap and how is this company selling it?
I checked the company online and found a lot of bad reviews.
I decided not to buy it and saved myself money.
I learned to evaluate the source before I trust a great offer.
That's a perfect example.
So a great idea of this process of looking at something and trying to evaluate whether or not it is true and whether the source is correct.
We had another comment in from Ahmed or another message, sorry, from Ahmed.
And he said, I heard a friend say that all fast food is bad for you.
I used critical thinking and asked myself, why is it bad?
I learned that while some fast food is unhealthy, it's not a simple truth.
It depends on the food and how often you eat it.
Some healthy food can also be fast.
I changed my perspective on the problem.
That's an excellent way to think critically and to not just believe exactly what you're told every time.
So thank you for both of those answers.
And now I want to hear from you guys.
You've heard some examples from two students.
And I want to hear your answers about a time that you had to think critically and maybe solve a problem or check if something is true.
It doesn't even have to be real.
You can make up or come up with a scenario.
I just want you to practice.
So let's go back to our episode today.
But very first, if you've listened this far well, first off, I'm glad you're enjoying the podcast episode.
But secondly, I want to tell you and remind again that on the Easy English Patreon, if you want to support this podcast which, of course, will always be free, You can sign up and join the English Patreon, the Easy English Patreon, for a small fee every month.
You get access to the full vocabulary lists and transcripts with each episode.
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Okay, let's go back to the episode.
The reason I thought that this topic was a good one to talk about is recently and perhaps I will do another episode about this, maybe on Patreon.
So recently with AI and lots of growth in technology.
There has been a lot of fake content online.
So, for example, AI generated content, fake news articles and lots of information.
We call it misinformation online about different things, and I think that now more than ever, it is a lot harder for people to tell whether something is true or not and, as a result, people stop believing things altogether.
Either they are tricks, they think, oh wow, that must be true, or Or they start to not believe anything.
So much so that I have even seen real posts of real things, and people do not believe them because they think oh, that's AI or that's computer generated.
It's not real.
But this is a problem.
As we go into the future, how do we tell as AI and computers get more realistic?
How do we know what is true and what is not?
And perhaps critical thinking will not be enough.
But for now, critical thinking still remains important.
And I think it always will be, but it will change how we have to use it.
And it may become a point that in the future we rely much more on our real senses, our hearing, our sight and touch like in real life, not online on a mobile phone or on a computer.
So today we've learned about that power of critical thinking.
We've seen that by asking simple questions why and how we can evaluate information through a process, consider different perspectives and avoid making wrong assumptions.
So we're analyzing the sources, we are looking at the claims and trying to understand generally.
This skill will help you to make better decisions in every aspect of your life, including in your English learning.
So I hope this episode has made you a little bit more confident with talking about critical thinking, or talking about the process of thinking in English.
So the next time you see something that you think hmm, sounds a little bit strange whether it's with English learning or something you see on social media remember to ask how and why.
Thank you so much for joining me today on the Easy English Podcast.
I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day and I will see you very, very soon.
Goodbye.
