LEVEL 3 – LOOKING FOR THE HOLY GRAIL?

1. LEVEL 3 – LOOKING FOR THE HOLY GRAIL? … and then they lived happily ever after Piret Paju

2. AGENDA • Some samples from BILC descriptors (productive skills) • Competences • Learning • Reality

3. BILC LEVEL 3 SPEAKING • Can use the language to perform such commonprofessional tasks as answering objections, clarifying points, justifying decisions, responding to challenges, supporting opinion, stating and defending policy.

4. LEVEL 3 WRITING • Can convey abstract concepts when writing about complex topics (which may include economics, culture, science, and technology) as well as his/her professional field. • The relationship and development of ideas are clear, and major points are coherently ordered to fit the purpose of the text.

5. DEANNA KUHN & herThe Skills of Argument (1991) • A majority of people cannot, even when prompted, reliably exhibit basic skills of general reasoning and argumentation. • Even if humans were naturally inclined to think critically, it would still be difficult to master because it is what cognitive scientists call a “higher-order skill.” That is, critical thinking is a complex activity built up out of other skills that are simpler and easier to acquire.

6. General competences – not specific to language, but which are called upon of all kinds, including language activities. Communicative language competences – which empower person to act using specifically linguistic means. RANGE OF COMPETENCES

7. GENERAL COMPETENCES • Declarative knowledge • Skills and know-how • “Existential” competence • Ability to learn

8. LINGUISTIC COMPETENCES • Lexical competence • Grammatical competence • Semantic competence • Phonological competence • Orthographic competence • Orthoepic competence

9. THEY ARE INTERRELATED • One doesn’t come without another at least not for level 3 • Level 2 can be “street-wise” and fluent • Level 2 can be linguistically correct but ….

10. LEARNING Planned process Formal study in an institutional setting ACQUISITION Observation or intuition Without torture Learning takes place without formal teaching PROCESS

11. HOW DO LEARNERS LEARN? • With regard to ability to learn, learners develop their study skills and heuristic skills and their acceptance of responsibility for their own learning • Importance in studies of cognition and learning is growing and this is addressed to the development of skilled thinking or critical thinking

12. COGNITIVE SKILLS OF CTAPA Delphi Study (Facione, 1990) • Interpretation – categorization, decoding significance, clarifying meaning • Analysis – examining ideas, detecting and analysing arguments • Evaluation – assessing claims and arguments • Inference – quering evidence, conjecturing alternatives, drawing conclusions • Explanation –stating results, justifying procedures, presenting arguments • Self-monitoring -- self-examination and correction • Information seeking, Discriminating, Predicting, Applying Standards, Logical reasoning (Nursing Delphi Study, Scheffer & Rubenfeld, 2000)

13. HOW DOES IT WORK?

14. HOLISTIC APPROACH • Critical Listening = monitoring how we listen • Critical Thinking = disciplined, self-directed, thinking about thinking • Critical Writing = requires disciplined thinking, expression of disciplined thinking • Critical Reading = inner dialogue with writer, enter point of view of writer • Critical Speaking = others gain in-depth understanding of speaker’s perspective

15. FINAL REFLECTIONS • Critical thinking is both a process and an outcome • Critical thinking involves reflection in knowing and in action and self monitoring • Critical thinking is composed of specific traits or dispositions and cognitive skills. • Critical thinking is a diagnostic reasoning and professional or clinical judgment. • Critical thinking can be supported in Reflective Practice • Critical thinking is based on a triggering event or situation, a starting point, scaffolds, processes, and outcomes that make up a continuous or iterative feedback loop

16. . • Californian Critical Thinking Skills Test measures 5 skills • Interpretation • Analysis • Evaluation • Inference • Explanation • Metacognition is not measured by the test

17. . • Scores were significantly correlated with • College grade point average • NO of English courses taken in high school (native speakers!) • Reading ability

18. METACOGNITION Is a potential bridge to bring together educators and researches who work on developing skilled thinking  But like many other intellectual skills – they do not develop to the level we would like …

19. Academics Isolated from the demands of classroom, pure joy of knowledge Practitioners Need methods that work and QUICKLY WHAT ARE WE LOOKING FOR?

20. Realist Absolutist Multiplist Evaluativist Assertions are COPIES of an external reality are FACTS that are correct or incorrect in their representation of reality are OPTIONS freely chosen by and accountable only to their owners are JUDGMENTS that can be evaluated and compared according to criteria of argument and evidence Knowledge comes from an external source and is certain comes from an external source and is certain but not directly accessible, producing false beliefs is generated by human minds and therefore uncertain (WHATEVER!) is generated by human minds and is uncertain but susceptible to evaluation Critical thinking is UNNECESSARY is a VEHICLE for comparing assertions to reality and determining their truth or falsehood is IRRELEVANT Is valued as a VEHICLE that promotes sound assertions and enhances understanding WHO DO WE DEAL WITH

21. . MANY ADULTS REMAIN ABSOLUTISTS OR MULTIPLISTS FOR LIFE. ONLY AT THE EVALUIST LEVEL ARE THINKING AND REASON RECOGNISED AS ESSENTIAL SUPPORT FOR BELIEFS AND ACTIONS.

22. THANK YOU… • AND DO YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS?