The Art of Listening: Fine- Tuning the Autonomous Mind Ching Ching Lin, Ed. D. Touro College

Agenda 1. Critical thinking in the context of the Common Core Standards 2. Linguistic Turn: Focusing on Academic Discourse 3. Academic Discourse and ELLs 4. Moving Forward: Incorporating Sociocultural Considerations into our Theorization of Critical Thinking 5. The Art of Listening: What does it look like in classroom? 6. Questions and Concerns

Critical thinking and the Common Core In the Common Core classroom, students are expected to: Identifying and evaluating arguments Questioning each other’s viewpoints Building on other’s ideas and expressing their own clearly. Drawing evidence to support analysis and reflection and research Reflecting on the justification of one’s beliefs and values

Linguistic Turn: Focusing on Academic Discourse Most scholars believe that There are a clear correlation between critical thinking and the ability to engage in academic discourse Academic language controls the access to the content of the core curriculum Instruction in academic English early, consistently, and simultaneously across content areas can make a difference in English Language Learners' ability to understand and engage the core curriculum (Atkinson, 1997; Gibbons, 2009)

Language For Class Discussions: Reporting A Pair’s/Group’s Idea  Casual Conversational English We think … We said …  Formal Spoken and Written English We decided that … We agreed that … We determined that … We concluded that … We observed that … We believe that … (Courtesy of Kate Kinsella)

Steps in Facilitating Discussion: Think-Write-Pair-Share  Partner students to rehearse responses.  Assign active listening and note-taking tasks.  Jump-start with a “nominated volunteer.”  Require use of public voices and the starter.  Randomly call on a few students before soliciting volunteers.  Refrain from offering your perspective until students have had ample opportunity to share. (Courtesy of Kate Kinsella)

Linguistic Turn: Focusing on Academic Discourse Addressing language demands and text complexity Infusing socialization in language and content learning Using language stems and discussion protocols to aid accountable talk Providing procedural scaffolding (e.g. “turn and talk”, “stop and jot”) Monitoring the process of thinking with Bloom’s Taxonomy

Implications for ELLs Convergence of content and language instruction Well defined instructional focus and expectations for both students and teachers Valuing process over output Whole language experience for students Language scaffolding and support for ELLs

Implications for ELLs However, approaches focusing on academic language development carry their own potential pitfall Fall into the typical pattern of “teacher question, student response and teacher’s evaluation of the response” May not allow for creative exploration and expression Fail to address students’ motivations, investment of their interests and agency

Sociocultural approaches to learning Literacy cannot be defined as an individual cognitive act, but rather as a social practice It involves forming new types of relationships between students and teachers, with students working in critical collaborative inquiry with others and assisted by the teacher (Warschauer,1997)

Sociocultural approaches to learning Discourse theory: A literacy practice is a socially accepted association among ways of using language and thinking, feeling, believing, valuing, and acting that can be used to identify oneself as a member of a 'social network’ (Bakhtin, 1986; Gee 1990). Literacy theory: Instead of “context-neutral, value-free skills” of coding and decoding texts, literacy is a complex social practice embedded in historical situations (Gee 1990; Lankshear 1994; New London Group 1996; Willinsky 1994). Critical Pedagogy: The ultimate goal of education is to liberate us from all the oppressive conditions in society. Critical pedagogy is grounded in the meaningful collaboration between teachers and students, co-intent on constructing reality through dialogue and problem-solving. (p. 51) (Freire 1970; 1985; Giroux 1988; McLaren 1994).

Mikhail Bakhtin’s Dialogism All cultural discourses are essentially dialogic “Every level of expression from live conversational dialog to complex cultural expression in other genres is an ongoing chain or network of statements and responses, repetitions and quotations, in which new statements presuppose earlier statements and anticipate future responses”.

Mikhail Bakhtin’s Dialogism (continued) The mutual shaping of understanding and responses “Any understanding of live speech, a live utterance, is inherently responsive... Any understanding is imbued with response and necessarily elicits it in one form or another: the listener becomes the speaker...” (p.68) (Genres and Other Late Essays. Trans. Vern W. McGee. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1986)

The implication of Mikhail Bakhtin’s Dialogism for teaching critical thinking Understanding and response “mutually condition each other” (Bakhtin, 1981, p. 282) The role of the other in shaping one’s thoughts “The listener becomes the speaker”; A good speaker/thinker as a good listener The importance of respecting multiple perspectives Hence, the importance of active listening

Active Listening as a learning tool Provides one the incentive to take risks in participating in classroom discussions. Helps improve the quality of one’s thinking. Engages students in learning

How does it look like in classrooms? Less teacher-centered, more student interaction Less linear, more multi-literate and multimodal to allow for creative exploration Redefining student-teacher relationship

Questions and Concerns

The End Ching Ching Lin, Ed. D Touro College