LEVEL 3 LOOKING FOR THE HOLY GRAIL

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LEVEL 3 LOOKING FOR THE HOLY GRAIL?

• and then they lived happily ever after
• Piret
  Paju

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AGENDA

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

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BILC LEVEL 3 SPEAKING

• Can use the language to perform such common
  professional tasks as answering objections,
  clarifying points, justifying decisions,
  responding to challenges, supporting opinion,
  stating and defending policy.

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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.

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DEANNA KUHN her The 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.

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RANGE OF COMPETENCES

• 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.

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GENERAL COMPETENCES

• Declarative knowledge
• Skills and know-how
• Existential competence
• Ability to learn

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LINGUISTIC COMPETENCES

• Lexical competence
• Grammatical competence
• Semantic competence
• Phonological competence
• Orthographic competence
• Orthoepic competence

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THEY ARE INTERRELATED

• One doesnt come without another at least not for
  level 3
• Level 2 can be street-wise and fluent
• Level 2 can be linguistically correct but .

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PROCESS

• LEARNING
• Planned process
• Formal study in an institutional setting

• ACQUISITION
• Observation or intuition
• Without torture
• Learning takes place without formal teaching

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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

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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)

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HOW DOES IT WORK?
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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 speakers perspective

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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

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.

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

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.

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

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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

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WHAT ARE WE LOOKING FOR?

• Academics
• Isolated from the demands of classroom, pure joy
  of knowledge

• Practitioners
• Need methods that work and QUICKLY

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WHO DO WE DEAL WITH
 
 
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.

• 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.

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THANK YOU

• AND DO YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS?