This paper reports on an action research conducted in a university semantic course for senior students of English in Vietnam. With the assumption that problem-based learning (PBL) approach promotes students’ thinking skills and facilitate students’ learning, the researcher designed problem-based learning activities that required students’ employment of higher-order thinking skills (HOTS) in their learning. | USING PROBLEM-BASED LEARNING TO PROMOTE STUDENTS’ USE OF HIGHER-ORDER THINKING SKILLS AND FACILITATE THEIR LEARNING Nguyen Thi Minh Tam* Faculty of Linguistics and Cultures of English-speaking Countries, VNU University of Languages and International Studies, Pham Van Dong, Cau Giay, Hanoi, Vietnam Received 24 November 2017 Revised 20 March 2018; Accepted 30 March 2018 Abstract: This paper reports on an action research conducted in a university semantic course for senior students of English in Vietnam. With the assumption that problem-based learning (PBL) approach promotes students’ thinking skills and facilitate students’ learning, the researcher designed problem-based learning activities that required students’ employment of higher-order thinking skills (HOTS) in their learning. By the time this paper was written, the action has finished its two cycles; each cycle lasted for nine weeks. The participants of the study were 31 students of Applied Linguistics in a college of foreign languages in Vietnam. The findings shed light on the extent to which PBL activities can promote students’ use of HOTS and facilitate their learning in their English semantic class. Keywords: higher-order thinking skills, problem-based learning (PBL), semantics 1. Introduction Problem-based learning (PBL) is a learner-centered pedagogical approach that provides learners opportunities to engage in goal-directed inquiry. PBL is designed with the assumption that “when we solve the many problems we face every day, learning occurs” (Barrows & Tamblyn, 1980, ). The implementation of PBL was pioneered in medical education in 1950s and then applied at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada in 1970s to teach students of medicine (Barrows & Tamblyn, 1980). Since then, PBL has been applied in other fields; especially, PBL has been expanded to teacher education since 1980 (de Chambeau & Ramlo, 2017; Hmelo-Silver, 2004; Hendry, Wiggins, & Anderson, 2016; Schetino, 2016; Sipes, 2016). .
