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spiral78 · Joined: 05 Apr 2004 Posts: 11534 Location: On a Short Leash

Dear John

Yes, but are we teaching them how to think, or how to express their thoughts? And/or perhaps we are teaching them what types of thoughts and language are expected in such an essay?

Best,
spiral

johnslat · Posted: Sun Dec 08, 2013 10:28 pm Post subject:

Dear spiral78,

I suspect it may be difficult to separate thinking logically from expressing one's thoughts logically. Moreover, I doubt that logical and fallacious thinking have any national boundaries; they're not, I'd say, confined to "the West."

Regards,
John

spiral78 · Joined: 05 Apr 2004 Posts: 11534 Location: On a Short Leash

Dear John:

My students are fully capable of logical, critical, analytical, and fallacious thinking on their own, without my guidance. And only a few of them are from the West. So, I am in total agreement with you:-)

As often.

Best,
spiral

johnslat · Posted: Sun Dec 08, 2013 11:00 pm Post subject:

Dear spiral78,

You are certainly more fortunate than I ( and, I suspect, than many others) in having students who are all capable of all that when they first walk into the classroom. Very few, if any, of my students are able to perceive fallacious thinking in, say ads or in politics.

(e.g. Premise: Obama wants nationalized health care.
Premise: The Nazis had nationalized health care.
Conclusion: Nationalized health care will make us all Nazis! Very Happy

Regards,
John

Sashadroogie · Posted: Mon Dec 09, 2013 5:39 am Post subject:

Dear Johnslat

This inability to see through baseless arguments has precious little to do with nationality or mother tongues, surely? I know as many from the anglophone world who suffer from this shortcoming as I do from the non-anglophone world. I may on occasion lapse myself, depending on how attractive the deception. However, my hackles would be raised if my Russian or French teacher dared to presume that they could teach me 'how to think critically'. Who are they to presume that? Language teachers? Pah! Let them teach me how to organise a text in their language according to their rules of discourse. But 'teach me to think'? Laughable!

And so are claims that TEFL teachers can or should operate under the same presumption. It is merely a delusion to believe that that is our role. Surely these much vaunted critical thinking skills could be deployed and used to analyse the terms of our contracts of employment?

With Communist greetings

Sasha

MuscatGary · Posted: Mon Dec 09, 2013 5:44 am Post subject:

I find critical thinking to be very difficult to teach in the ME. Maybe this is because Islam doesn't encourage/allow questioning?

Sashadroogie · Posted: Mon Dec 09, 2013 6:06 am Post subject:

Hmmmm.

I find teaching critical thinking in the West to be difficult, mainly because of years of capitalist Piggie brainwashing. Luckily I don't try to teach these skills too much : ) Not in my English classes, at any rate. But in my Dialectical Materialism lectures, I often succeed in opening minds long closed by selfish greed...

All our cultures have their blind spots - some of them monumental. Ask a Britisher who invented football, and smirk. Ask an American about the world's first democracy, and be appalled. Ask a Russian about Russia's mission to save the world, and be amazed.

Seriously. To all newbies coming to the wonderful world of TEFL - disabuse yourself of any notions that your job involves 'enlightening' the natives in any capacity beyond language. The OP got it right re nasty regimes/religions etc: it isn't your job, and could very well be dangerous to attempt to make it so

fat_chris · Joined: 10 Sep 2003 Posts: 3198 Location: Beijing

steki47 · Joined: 20 Apr 2008 Posts: 1029 Location: BFE Inaka

mk87 · Joined: 01 Apr 2013 Posts: 61

Sashadroogie · Posted: Mon Dec 09, 2013 11:54 am Post subject:

Sashadroogie · Posted: Mon Dec 09, 2013 12:05 pm Post subject:

mk87 · Joined: 01 Apr 2013 Posts: 61

I know what you mean and its something that I am always very wary of, I was trained in social anthropology in a previous life :p so that kind of stuff is never far away from my mind. However let me give you a concrete example of what I mean. I'm not talking about "teaching critical thinking". I'm talking about language learning being a critical process as a whole.

Often in our mid-late teen classes in VN you have textbooks etc that deal with social issues (the environment, protests etc) This is something that simple is not taught at any level of vietnamese education - ask them about economics and they all know Marx (unsuprisingly, but with absolutely no understanding of what he was saying, either in VNese or in English).

However it's impossible to actually teach that kind of stuff in any meaningful way without bringing out some ideas that they have not come across in thier L1 (In the same way that sometimes our first input in terms of thought may come through a foreign word).

I'm not talking about cultural imperialism, I'm talking about giving them the words to discuss something. For me speech is inherent to critical thought, we dont often form our ideas in writing first (even in the "civilised west") so the ability to speak about these things has to be prior. Yes there is a politics of words, and a history, but if they can't engage with those words how can they change it?

Paulo Freire sums it up much more poetically than I could hope to.

“An unauthentic word, one which is unable to transform reality, results when dichotomy is imposed upon its constitutive elements. When a word is deprived of its dimension of action, reflection automatically suffers as well; and the word is changed into idle chatter, into verbalism, into an alienated and alienating “blah.” It becomes an empty word, one which cannot denounce the world, for denunciation is impossible without a commitment to transform, and there is no transformation without action.”

This is what I mean by critical, instilling within our learners that language is not simply a passive subject waiting to be absorbed until we are full to the brim - but that it is inherrently at its base an ongoing social relationship that is shaed by them as learners as much as by us as teachers. Thats not saying we should abandon any structure... but I certainly think its possible to turn language into a study of the unauthentic by throwing any notion of "ideas" away.... if you follow?

Sashadroogie · Posted: Mon Dec 09, 2013 6:17 pm Post subject:

MK87, I am not so sure that I do follow you fully, but the sheer beauty of your exposition is swaying me. Is an appreciation of euphony covered by 'critical skills'? : )

johnslat · Posted: Mon Dec 09, 2013 6:29 pm Post subject:

Dear Sasha,

How's your critical reading?

John: " Moreover, I doubt that logical and fallacious thinking have any national boundaries; they're not, I'd say, confined to "the West."

Sasha: " Dear Johnslat: This inability to see through baseless arguments has precious little to do with nationality or mother tongues, surely? I know as many from the anglophone world who suffer from this shortcoming as I do from the non-anglophone world. I may on occasion lapse myself, depending on how attractive the deception. However, my hackles would be raised if my Russian or French teacher dared to presume that they could teach me 'how to think critically'. Who are they to presume that? Language teachers? Pah! Let them teach me how to organise a text in their language according to their rules of discourse. But 'teach me to think'? Laughable! "

Regards,
John