[ProfessionalDevelopment 2277] Re: Whatdo wemeanbystudentinvolvement and critical thinking?Janet Isserlis Janet_Isserlis at brown.eduMon Jul 14 09:05:19 EDT 2008
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. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.nifl.gov/pipermail/professionaldevelopment/attachments/20080714/6f0f24ad/attachment.html
More information about the ProfessionalDevelopment mailing list |