Aecdotes in Comics

INTRODUCTION Psychologists Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky conducted research on child development. They both agreed that children are active learners and a steady increase in cognitive development happens in childhood and declines with age. According to Vygotsky, children can perform more challenging tasks with the help of adults that is teachers. Eventually difficult tasks enhance children`s cognitive development. Based on their observations, many educators believe that children should be taught logical and critical thinking from an early age. Today, it may be unclear how to define the level of logical and critical thinking, how to teach logical and critical thinking, and how to assess whether logical and critical thinking has been taught. In addition, when the pupils are foreign language (EFL) learners, another component is added: how to incorporate the teaching and development of logical and critical thinking into the teaching and learning of another language, particularly English (Daniyarova,Landers, 2023). One of the theories that Piaget and Vygotsky did not agree on was language. The former believed that development proceeds language i.e. there are stages of cognitive development that influence language, while the latter claimed that language proceeds development i.e. language is a tool that facilitates thinking. Taking into consideration either claims, we can incorporate activities that enhance logical and critical thinking into English classes from an early age. This methodical manual describes the methodology of teaching and developing logical and critical thinking to preschool and primary school pupils based on the sample of Uzbek folklore - anecdotes (Khodja Nasreddin and new anecdotes for children). Anecdotes and exercises in this methodological guide are selected based on "Guess What!" 1-4 grade Student`s Book. The books consist of several sections; each unit is divided into vocabulary, grammar, reading, writing, speaking, listening skills, storytelling, conversational time, and Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL). Since the stories in the textbooks are presented through pictures, the anecdotes in the methodical manual are also presented in the form of comics. All exercises presented in the methodical guide can be used with various anecdotes to help students learn English and enhance logical and critical thinking skills.