To further the analogy, If I want to improve my singing so I can sing in the shower, or in a not so good church choir, or in a very good amateur chorus, or as a professional, my goals are very different. I knew someone who got herself to the performance level she needed to be to do a concert, just to see if she could. Then she decided that she didn't want to invest all the time, effort, and discipline into maintaining this highest level, so decided to spend time on other things, even though she'd "lose" her performance-level singing. So given the survival issues that are different whether one wants to "dabble" in music, or make it one's life, or to learn Italian so I can go on a singing tour with Americans, though I have no intention of living and getting a job in Italy, I have two differing levels I want/need to to attain. We have many Italian-Americans here who only needed to learn enough English to survive in a pre-literacy level jmanufacturing job,
 or at the market, and so, when technology changed and their literacy level was no longer sufficient to maintain their jobs, they had a choice: learn, or get fired. The same goes for the women who had to leave th4e market and get factory jobs. I just met a woman who's putting in her resume after 20 years in banking; she had lost her Italian accent and was very competent. Then, like a good Italian girl/woman, she had to leave her job to take care of her ailing mother. When her mother died, she was able to get a job at a not-for-profit some distance away, but where she had to speak a fair amount of Italian, and now she's ashamed of her accent, not to mention not being able to pay the gas it takes to go to her low-paying job. All of this to say that critical thinking about the level of music or language one wants has nothing to do with the classroom, yet nevertheless is critical thinking: decisions are being made, problems solved, big picture examined. 
 I'm not sure this helps... But it does demonstrate, contrary to what my previous posts may seem to have implied, that I think critical thinking is entirely an academic matter, or can only be engaged at a specific language level. When I was teaching adult ed/esol and techology courses, the going assumption was that one had to be at least intermediate level esol to learn computers. Not so! sure, it helps, but in a program where it's not a generic computer training, and the students can be assisted by ther peers in L1 perhaps, or by the instructor, lower-level students were perfectly capable of learning computers.
Best,
Bonnie Odiorne
Post University

----- Original Message ----
From: Janet Isserlis <Janet_Isserlis at brown.edu>
To: The Adult Literacy Professional Development Discussion List <professionaldevelopment at nifl.gov>
Sent: Monday, July 14, 2008 2:45:49 PM
Subject: [ProfessionalDevelopment 2290] Re: Whatdo wemeanbystudentinvolvement and critical thinking?

Steve

I wonder if we're overlooking some of the considerations around purposes of learning language.

I listened to your blog post about critical thinking and one thing that occurred to me then, and occurs to me here is the fact that adults have all sorts of reasons for wanting – and needing – to learn language, which is where some of the parallels between learning to sing and learning to communicate might not be as helpful.

If I'm wanting to learn, say, Chinese, so I might try to follow the Olympics on a web cast, or if I want to learn Italian, to understand an opera, it's very different than trying to learn either of those two languages in order to communicate effectively in areas where those languages are spoken.

I wonder if this might tie (tangentially) into Jackie's last question about learner involvement, and how learners' determined needs and goals might have some bearing on this whole consideration of critical thinking?

Janet


________________________________
From: Steve Kaufmann <steve at thelinguist.com>
Reply-To: The Adult Literacy Professional Development Discussion List <professionaldevelopment at nifl.gov>
Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2008 09:10:17 -0700
To: The Adult Literacy Professional Development Discussion List <professionaldevelopment at nifl.gov>
Subject: [ProfessionalDevelopment 2287] Re: Whatdo wemeanbystudentinvolvement and critical thinking?

Janet,

I think that the activities of a language learner, and the attitude of a language learner, are quite similar to those of someone learning to sing. First one has to listen and get used to the sounds and rhythm. And one has to find a way to enjoy the learning process. For a more complete description of my view of language learning you can look at my article <http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/the-three-stages-of-language-fluency/>  which appeared on Pickthebrain.com today.

Steve
On Mon, Jul 14, 2008 at 6:05 AM, Janet Isserlis <Janet_Isserlis at brown.edu> wrote:

Steve and all

I don't think you're saying that English learning should be like music appreciation – that one can enjoy either (language or music) with no basis of prior expectation, concepts or assumptions?  That the language or the music will just be heard and appreciated?

Surely, part of the language learning process involves receiving/hearing/taking in.  But for learning to occur, active processes of meaning-making have to happen.

In order to learn, to make meaning, there needs to be some basis of prior understanding, of a world view, yes, of assumptions.  The critical thinking part (in the target language, in this case English) may, for some, be merely a matter of learning the words to translate thoughts from a first language into English).  For others, it's a process of asking questions, weighing options, learning more about possibilities and consequences.

Janet





From: Steve Kaufmann <steve at thelinguist.com>
Reply-To: The Adult Literacy Professional Development Discussion List <professionaldevelopment at nifl.gov>
Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2008 14:43:00 -0700




> I am of the opinion that beginner ESL learners should be allowed to listen to the language and try to enjoy it, with little requirement to state what their assumptions are on anything.


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Steve Kaufmann
www.lingq.com <http://www.lingq.com> 
1-604-922-8514
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