05/10/13
Thinking skills for CLIL | Onestopenglish
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Thinking skills for CLIL By Jean Brewster T y pe: Article, Reference material, Teaching notes In the first of a new series of study skills for CLIL, Jean Brewster takes the v ery topical subject of thinking skills and looks at how CLIL teaching embraces many of the thinking skills principles and how this benefits the learner. Introduction | Teaching thinking skills | Conclusion
Introduction In CLIL lessons the cognitiv e challenges of language learning are great; much of the content lies outside children's direct ex perience and is often more abstract. For ex ample, in science lessons learners may struggle to describe and compare the properties of materials, may find it impossible to hy pothesize about why particular materials are used for particular purposes. They may be able to write up the procedural part of a report after testing materials but not how to write conclusions. By being taught specific thinking skills and the associated language, learners are better equipped to deal with the complex academic and cognitiv e demands of learning school subjects in a foreign language.
Basic Interpersonal Communicative Skills (BICS) and Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP) In 1 97 9 the Canadian educator, Jim Cummins, made a useful distinction between BICS, the skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing for so-called social or conversational purposes and CALP, linked to more academic, cognitiv ely challenging tasks in subject lessons. The work of Biber (1 986) and Corson (1 995) prov ided ev idence of the linguistic reality in the distinction between BICS and CALP. This original distinction, refined ov er time in response to some criticisms, has continued to prov ide useful insights for many CLIL teachers.
Typical language and thinking in tasks If learners are ex perimenting with different colour combinations in an art class, try ing out magnets in the science class or inv estigating the lines of sy mmetry of 2D shapes in maths lessons, what kinds of skill, aside from basic language skills, will they need to draw on or dev elop? Learners may be encouraged to to to to to
predict what will happen, carry out simple inv estigations or ex periments, describe and record what they observ e, find patterns, notice similarities and differences, compare results, to draw conclusions and so on.
If we take the ex ample of predicting, learners may know the use of w ill/ going to for an easy , ev ery day situation. Howev er, with little knowledge of the concept of magnetism, for ex ample, learners may not be able to think v ery clearly about their intended meaning and may not know the subject-specific words of attract or repel. Some children find it difficult enough to draw on these more academic kinds of interaction in their first language, nev er mind a foreign language. As John Clegg wrote in an earlier article: The truth is that schools don't often teach these skills explicitly. Instead, teachers hope that their learners w ill pick them up. www.onestopenglish.com/clil/methodology/study-skills-for-clil/thinking-skills-for-clil/501197.article
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05/10/13
Thinking skills for CLIL | Onestopenglish
The first section of this article will refer briefly to the renewed interest in teaching thinking skills, often based on modern re-conceptions of the traditional tax onomy of thinking skills published by Benjamin Bloom in 1 956. This categorization and ordering of thinking skills inv olv es a discussion of how the socalled low er-order thinking skills should ideally lead onto the teaching of higher order thinking skills. The nex t section on process skills outlines those skills ty pically required in different stages of concept dev elopment in subject lessons. Finally , there will be a brief ex ample of how the use of graphic organizers to record and interpret information links thinking skills to process skills and language skills.
Teaching thinking skills Today there is international recognition that education is more than just learning knowledge and thinking, it also inv olv es learners' feelings, beliefs and the cultural env ironment of the classroom. Nev ertheless, the importance of teaching thinking and creativ ity is an important element in modern education. Benjamin Bloom was the first to dev elop a highly popularized hierarchy of six thinking skills placed on a continuum from lower to higher order skills: knowledge, comprehension, application, analy sis, sy nthesis and ev aluation. According to this sy stem, low er order skills included recalling knowledge to identify , label, name or describe things. Higher order skills called on the application, analy sis or sy nthesis of knowledge, needed when learners use new information or a concept in a new situation, break information or concepts into parts to understand it more fully , or put ideas together to form something new. Bloom's structure was a useful starting point and triggered many applications to school activ ities and curricula.
Bloom's revised taxonomy of thinking skills In 2001 a former student of Bloom, Lorin Anderson, published a rev ised classification of thinking skills which is actually rather similar to the original but focuses more on v erbs than nouns and renames some of the lev els. Fig. 1 Bloom's Revised Taxonomy Higher order thinking skills Creating making, designing, constructing, planning, producing, inv enting, Ev aluating checking, hy pothesizing, ex perimenting, judging, testing, monitoring, Analy zing comparing, organizing, outlining, finding, structuring, integrating Apply ing implementing, carry ing out, using Understanding comparing, ex plaining, classify ing, ex emplify ing, summarizing Remembering recognizing, listing, describing, identify ing, retriev ing, naming, finding, defining Lower order thinking skills
We can see that these lev els hav e an intuitiv e appeal to many teachers; howev er it can also be difficult to implement some of these ideas. For ex ample, comparing falls both under analyzing and understanding, which is confusing. Here analy zing the lev el of comparison depends on contex t, for ex ample: how complex is the concept or knowledge being compared?
Linking thinking and language The figure below is an ex ample of how publications on thinking skills began to start linking some common thinking and process skills with the ty pical language required. For reasons of space, only three lev els are ex emplified. Fig. 3 Typical thinking and language skills Thinking skill Rem em bering/ Recall recognizing, listing, describing, identify ing, retriev ing, naming, finding, defining
Possible language Questions using w ho, w hat, w here, w hen, w hich how , how much? T asks using describe, choose, define, find, label, colour, match, underline key vocabulary in different colours (e.g. parts of a system and functions) Language:
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Thinking skills for CLIL | Onestopenglish
That's a …(because it has …and … ) This is a … and this is w hat it does. This has… This is a kind of …. w hich/that … A … is a kind of… w hich/that … This goes w ith this. Understanding/ Interpreting comparing, ex plaining, ex emplify ing, classify ing, understanding cause and effect, generalizing, summarizing,
Apply ing to new situations
Questions using is this the same as…? What's the difference betw een…? Which part doesn't fit or match the others? Why? T asks using classify, explain, show w hat w ould happen if … give an example, show in a graph or table, use a V enn diagram or chart to show … Language: This is ..( a kind of…) but that one isn't (because…) This has ( a type of…)but that one doesn't/hasn't (because…). These are all types of …because This belongs/ goes here because… If w e do this then… This leads to.. This causes … Questions using w hat w ould happen if..? What w ould result in …? How much change is there if you …?
Planning, implementing, carry ing out, drawing conclusions, reporting T asks using Explain w hat w ould happen if…, Show the results of…, back Using investigations and experimental inquiry e.g. surveys, w eb quests etc. choosing how to record and represent information Language: A v ariety of language functions for planning, hy pothesizing, asking questions, reporting, drawing conclusions e.g. What shall w e try/ do first? if w e try this then ...that could be… First w e thought about… then w e…This must be .. because… It can't be …because…
Marzano's taxonomy of skills in education In 2000 Marzano published a different way of looking at skills. His classification is based on the Know ledge Domain and three sy stems - the Cognitive, the Selfand the Metacognitive. The self sy stem inv olv es a learner's attitudes, beliefs and feelings that determine his/her motiv ation. The metacognitiv e sy stem relates to learning to learn: it helps the learner to set goals, make decisions about and monitor which information is necessary and which cognitiv e processes are the best fit for the task in hand. Fig. 2 Marzano's New Educational Taxonomy KNOWLEDGE DOMAIN
Inform ation
Mental procedures
Phy sical procedures
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Thinking skills for CLIL | Onestopenglish
COGNIT IVE SY ST EM Knowledge Com prehension retriev al
Recall: Recalling information, facts, sequences and processes.
Analy sis
Matching, classifying, error analysis, Synthesis:identify ing generalizing and specifiying: by engaging what is important to in these cognitiv e processes learners use remember. what they learn to create insights and inv ent way s of using learned information in Representation: new situations. putting this information into categories.
Knowledge use
Decision-making, problem-solving, experimental inquiry, investigations. These are also especially useful in project-ty pe work.
Graphic organizers encourage this process.
The know ledge domain, consists of three categories of knowledge: information, mental procedures and phy sical procedures. A child at primary lev el may learn about quadrilaterals and the key v ocabulary and characteristics to describe them. This is the w hat of knowledge. She will also learn how to draw different kinds of quadrilateral (phy sical procedures) and how to compare or classify them (mental procedures). The cognitiv e sy stem is made up of four components: knowledge retriev al, comprehension, analy sis, and knowledge use. Marzano's cognitiv e sy stem is similar to the six lev els of Bloom and Anderson. In knowledge retriev al (cf. Remembering and Understanding) the child needs to be able to identify and put a name to new information; for ex ample, the topic might be mammals and the names of different ty pes of big cat, such as tiger, lion, cheetah and so on. Facts about mammals will inv olv e statements and generalizations using the simple present tense, such as: mammals have a covering of fur, hair, or skin, mammals give birth to live young, mammals are w arm -blooded, mammals feed their young w ith milk from the mother, tigers have stripes but cheetahs and leopards have spots, etc. tigers can sw im These language functions can be linked to all four basic language skills using activ ities based on oracy (speaking and listening) and literacy tasks (reading and writing). For ex ample, learners can listen to descriptions of animals and choose the correct picture, use a tick chart to listen to comparisons of big cats and then use this as a speaking frame to produce simple sentences. Learners might read simple descriptions of big cats and transfer key information onto a chart, then use this chart to w rite simple sentences. This basic knowledge can be ex tended to compare and classify ty pes of big cat in different way s according to features such as habitat, characteristics, appearance etc. Under comprehension the learners sort out which information is important or relev ant for a task and ignore other information. Graphic organizers such as charts, grids, V enn diagrams and flow charts are especially important here for learners as they organize information in a way that reduces the language load. Thus they help the learner to focus on the key language and thinking required. In analysis the learners need to draw on more complex thinking processes - matching, classify ing, generalizing and specify ing - in order to create and inv ent new insights or new way s of using learned information. These skills are likely to be highlighted when carry ing out inv estigations. Know ledge use is the highest form of thinking process under Marzano's sy stem and is used particularly in the creation of inv estigations, projects and web quests, where application and the creation of new ideas are particularly useful. www.onestopenglish.com/clil/methodology/study-skills-for-clil/thinking-skills-for-clil/501197.article
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05/10/13
Thinking skills for CLIL | Onestopenglish
Conclusion These attempts to analy ze and classify thinking processes mov e from a foundation of simpler, lower order skills to more complex higher order skills. Howev er, there is still no consensus about the ex act number of skills or lev els, the interaction between them nor is it easy to analy se the lev el of difficulty of a particular task or the precise thinking skills required. All we can do for now is draw on insights that hav e been made and see which ones seem to fit in with our v iews. The nex t article focuses on process skills and datahandling, referring particularly to the use of graphic organizers to record and interpret data. The importance and benefits of graphic organizers for both learners and teachers will be described and how teachers can plan for them. Different ty pes of organizer will be outlined and one ty pe called gly phs will be illustrated in some detail. September 2009
References Anderson, L.W. and D. Krathw ohl (eds.) (2001 ). A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching and Assessing: a Revision of Bloom's Educational Objectives.Longman. New Y ork. Biber, D. (1 986). 'Spoken and w ritten textual dimensions in English: Resolving the contradictory findings.' Language 62, 384-41 4. Corson, D. (1 995). Using English w ords. New Y ork: Kluwer. Cummins, J. (1 97 9). 'Cognitive/academic language proficiency, linguistic interdependence, the optimum age question and some other matters.' Working Papers on Bilingualism. 1 9, 1 21 -1 29. Harlen, W. And A. Qualter, (2007 ). The Teaching of Science in Primary Schools.3 r d edn. Abingdon, Ox on: Routledge. Marzano, R. J. (2000). Designing a new taxonomy of educational objectives. Thousand Oaks, CA.: Corwin Press. Thinking Skills Methodology CLIL BIC CALP Skills Study skills Graphic organizers
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