Exploring critical thinking through students’ reflective papers on a CLIL cultural studies course

1. Exploring critical thinking through students’ reflective papers on a CLIL cultural studies course Chantal Hemmi Lecturer CLER Sophia University chantalhemmi@gmail.com

2. Outline

3. 1. The context April-July 2012 English Literature Department Sophia University Second and third year Ten female and two male students Monday first period 1.5 hours per week (21 hours in total)

4. 2. What is CLIL?The most popular definition Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) is a dual-focused educational approach in which an additional language is used for the learning and teaching of both content and language. (Coyle, Hood and Marsh 2010:1)

5. Mapping CLIL ESL EFL EFL/ESL GTM AL CLT (weak) PPP CLT (strong) TBI CLIL CBI Immersion Submersion ‘sink or swim’ Structure-based instruction Communicative instruction Natural acquisition EFL = English as a foreign language CLT = Communicative Language Teaching ESL = English as a second language PPP = Presentation-Practice-Production GTM = Grammar translation method TBI = Task-based instruction AL = Audiolingualism CBI = Content-based instruction These slides are from Professor Ikeda’s ‘ABCs of CLIL’ presentation

6. 10 pedagogical features 1Placing equal emphasis on content learning and language learning 2 Encouraging the use of authentic materials (e.g. webpages, newspaper) 3Giving multimodal input (i.e. written/ spoken texts, graphics, statistics, videos) 4Using various levels of thinking skills (i.e. LOTS and HOTS) 5Giving many tasks These slides are from Professor Ikeda’s ‘ABCs of CLIL’ presentation

7. 6Making the most of cooperative learning (e.g. pairwork, group work) 7Providing scaffolding in content and language 8 Incorporating elements of cross- cultural understanding and global issues 9 Integrating the four skills 10 Instructing learning skills These slides are from Professor Ikeda’s ‘ABCs of CLIL’ presentation

8. Sharing 3. What I did to encourage critical thinking: my story as a practitioner Think of a childhood memory and share your story. Make a note of your partner’s story and report it to another partner after you have finished sharing your stories.

9. This is Sister Oona, my primary school teacher.

10. I met her again in February (2010) at a café in Oxford.

11. A book I read when I was a child

16. What I found interesting about my partner’s story was… She remembered the experience so well The experience was so memorable She remembered how…

17. What is identity? Definitions • Identity answers the question, ‘Who am I?’ (Sarbin and Scheibe, 1983; Weigart et al, 1986). • ‘Identities are defined with respect to the interaction of multiple convergent trajectories’ (Wenger, 1998:154). • ‘A community of selves’ (Mair, 1997) • ‘Identities and beliefs are co-constructed, negotiated and transformed on an ongoing basis by means of language.’ (Duff &Uchida, 1997:452)

18. Part 1.3 Who cares? Memories of a Childhood in Care Fred Fever 16 pages

19. 1.     How old was the writer when he was adopted? 2.     What were the first parents like? 3.     What was Patrick like? 4.     What did David do?

20. Let’s check the homework. 1.     How old was the writer when he was adopted? Three months old 2.     What were the first parents like? Jenny was warm and friendly and loving. 3.     What was Patrick like? Patrick was humiliating, punishing and violent. 4.     What did David do? He sexually abused him; He threatened him with castration.

21. What happened in the rest of the story? (True or false?) • In 1974, Fred was fostered by Betty and Bernard Simmonds. • Fred made many friends in Barrow Grove. • Fred was not interested in his school work at all. • Fred got bad grades from school. • Fred was happy to go to a children’s home.

22. The nature of autobiographies In your view, what is the nature of autobiographies? It is a true story. There are real descriptions. However, is it alright to trust the stories? Is it a good tool for research?

23. Personal reflections: What I did in the CLIL classes (Not necessarily whatshould be done in a CLIL class in a prescribed way)

24. Personal reflections

26. 4. What is critical thinking?

27. What is critical thinking? An active, persistent and careful consideration of a belief Supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds which support it (Dewey, 1909) Dewey, J. (1998) How We Think. Dover Publications.

29. Reflection According to Schön (1987) a reflective practitioner thinks a he/she does things (reflection in action) and reflects on the actions taken (reflection on action). Schön, D. (1987) Educating the Reflective Practitioner. Jossey-Bass Publishers: London.

31. Critical thinking skills-a disposition? Ennis (1987) focused on the ability to reflect skeptically and to think in a reasoned way as one’s capability or disposition. Ennis, R. (1987) A taxonomy of critical thinking dispositions and abilities. In J.Baron and R. Sternberg (eds.). Teaching Thinking Skills: Theory and practice. New York: W.H.Freeman.

32. Critical thinking: a set of skills Cottrell (2011:1) supports the view that critical thinking can be taught as a set of skills. She advocates that it is a cognitive activity that uses processes such as focussing attention, categorisation, selection and judgment. Cottrell, S.(2011) Critical Thinking Skills, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

34. What are the benefits of focussing on critical thinking? We can help students to be able to think and present their opinions with reasons. We can help students to listen critically to others and agree/disagree with reasons. We can help students in the selection of materials they read.

36. What are the benefits of focussing on critical thinking? We can guide them to take control of their learning and become more autonomous in what and how they learn.

38. 5. The study Research questions What kind of reflection is shown in the students’ reflective papers? How did student thinking develop through the course?

39. Data collection First six weeks of term before the students launched on a project related to identity and diversity Reflective papers were sent to me by e-mail

40. Sample paper

41. Data analysis I used a grounded theory approach to analyse the data (Glaser & Strauss, 1968), so that the findings remain close to the actual data and as far as possible retain the ‘voices’ of the participants. I aimed to identify the commonalities in the kinds of thinking that took place, but at the same time, I wished to understand the stories that individuals told about their learning and thinking. I analysed the data in this way so as to identify commonalities amongst what the students’ had expressed in their papers.

42. What kind of reflection is shown in the students’ reflective papers? Personalising concepts Exploring definitions (personalising the definitions) Making comparisons Analysing content Thinking about language Learning through collaboration Thinking about culture Thinking about emotions Forming a hypothesis Theorising personally Thinking about suggestions

43. Thinking about content and language The data from the reflective papers showed that the students had thought about both the new content learnt on the course, as well as the English language itself. Thinking about content Three categories emerged from the data; analysingcontent, personalisingconcepts, and making personal theories.

44. Personalising concepts It is illuminating that students had personalised concepts by referring back to their own past experiences. Eriko said,‘ I have read some biographies before, but I didn’t think about what is the power of that what is the difference between biographies and other writings.’ She is comparing biographies and other kinds of writing to understand what kind of impact they have on the readers. She compares the autobiography we read, which had real data on how Fred was abused in an orphanage. This text was used in class to analyse how Fred’s identity was formed. It is interesting that Eriko is trying to personalise a new concept about the power of autobiographies by comparing them to other books she has read.

45. Analysing content(Making comparisons) When Eriko read an auto-biography of a British person who had lived in orphanages, ’Who cares? Memories of a Childhood in Care’ (Fever, 1995), there was a reference to his grades from school. Eriko wrote: ‘I do not know whether it is a big difference or not but on the left side one which is written on 19thFebruary in 1976, the teacher refers Fred as ‘Alfred’ though on the right side, the teacher write ‘Fred’. I know those two words refer to the same person but I wondered what has happened during five month.’ The above text shows that Eriko is comparing the way the teacher referred to the author differently and Eriko guesses that something must have happened in the relationship between the teacher and Alfred. She is questioning herself by saying, ‘ I wondered what has happening during five month’. She does not make explicit what her guesses are but she formed a question to analyse the differences in which Alfred was addressed.

46. Exploring definitions When I was a junior high school student I always changed my attitude with whom I talk and I felt difficulty in defining myself because I didn’t have my consistent character and didn’t know who I was. It was hard for me to live school life not knowing what my character was. However, one day I noticed that to try to define my character is just my ‘identity’. That is, to think about ‘identity’ is exactly identity. (Saki 1-2) I was very interested in the matter of identity, and I rediscovered the importance of the events in each personal lives, by listening the lectures of professor and also the opinions of the classmates. They reminded me of a traumatic episode, which changed my life. I am fascinated by the fact that our identity stands on the layers of tiny fatal occurance. (Naho 1-5)

47. Making personal theories Students wrote out their own definitions in order to make personal theories about identity. For example, Saki said: ‘Identity was a difficult thing to explain and I have not found the definition of identity yet…In the last class, having listened to other’s opinion that identity is what makes our core, I have a definition of identity, that is, a consistent tendency that one always have.’ I was intrigued by the concept of ‘a consistent tendency that one always [has]’, as I think that Saki is thinking about the fact that one’s identity can change, depending on the people one is interacting with, and that identity is socially constructed. However, she is thinking there must be a ‘core’ person who determines who they are. She uses the word, ‘tendency’ to explain that although there is a ‘core person’ within a person, they may change. ‘Tendency’ is translated as ‘keikou’ in Japanese, and what she means here is that one may tend to behave differently depending on the circumstances of the social situation and who one’s interlocutor is. By making such a personal theory about identity, Saki is internalising the content she learnt in the lesson.

48. Making personal theories I think identity is made up with how person spend his or her life so the biographies tell the readers about the writer’s identity more deeply and efficiently than the novels they wrote. However, actually the writer might try to be a hero or heroine of tragedy throughout their writings so I agree with the opinions that ‘feelings may not be reliable’ and subjectivity would change the truth. (Eriko1-2)

49. Thinking about language Content is more important than pronunciation. I think many people in British Council thought Sadako Ogata’s speech is professional, gentle, and easy to hear, and right speed. The more I hear her speech I like Sadako Ogata’s speech more. In Japanese there are many people (including me) who think that their pronunciation is not so good. But now, I change my mind. Even I can become a good English speaker if I care about the contents and have the will to share my opinion to everyone. (Aya 2-1)

50. Learning through collaboration Before I took this class, I had thought that my words were reliable and I could talk my experiences truthfully because they were what I actually experienced and believed that both what I experienced to a thing and what others experienced were the same. However, I found that there was a difference of the way of understanding to a same thing between others and I. (Saki 1-5)