language and thinking skills

7/31/2019 Language and Thinking Skills

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Language and thinking skills

..and so I learnednot from who taught,but from those whotalked with me.

St Augustine,Confessions


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Growth in linguistic skills entails much practice.

Children are embarked on a long apprenticeshipin developing thinking skills in the four modes oflanguage. A fifth mode of language which isoften overlooked, can play a vital role indeveloping language skills. This fifth mode isinner speech, which can help as much as outerspeech when a child needs to decentre andelaborate his thinking.


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Inner speech

When Im stuck I can tell

myself what to do, and ithelps


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Inner speech is the talking to ourselves that we dosometimes when confronted with a problem. It is a humancapacity that develops slowly and at variable rates inchildren. This inner talking is not simply the idle chatter ofthe mind. Inner speech plays a vital role in controlling andinfluencing our behaviour. What we say to ourselves affectsour attitudes and actions.


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It also affects our understanding of the world. To describesome thing differently to oneself is to understand itdifferently. Psychotherapists have used the inner speech ofpatients to help modify ways of understanding andresponding to the world. Religious leaders have used innerspeech in the form of prayer and meditation to heightenspiritual awareness. Psychologists have used it to maximise

human performance in a wide range of sporting activities.


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Impulsive children often lack the patternsof inner speech that would help them to

focus on matters in hand. Working onways of talking through what they aredoing can help them to achieve a more

careful, deliberate and thoughtfulapproach. We have all had experience oftalking ourselves out of, or of beingconfident in tackling problems.


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They can also talk themselves into andthrough the challenges they face,

monitoring and marshalling theirknowledge and skills to tackle a task inhand. Inner speech is of course no

substitute for particular knowledge andskills but it can help to mobilise what thechild knows and link it to what the child cando


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Struggling for direction, going back tobeginnings, reviewing strategies,

recognising new problems that arise, facingfrustration, overcoming setbacks, starting

along false trails, hesitating over choicesand expressing that swirl of hope and doubtare the characteristic responses of the truelearner.


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Some children gain by working in pairs or groups and

thinking aloud while trying to solve shared problems.There are two reasons why this can be valuable:

By listening to classmates solving problems the childmay learn about other peoples approach to problem

solving


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By expressing their thoughts to themselves and others,

the childs own approach to the problem can be checkedand analysed.


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The teacher can divide the class into pairs and have onemember think aloud while the other is the response partner playingthe role of listener/ enquirer. In practice, children may find it difficultto keep to these rules and are likely to prefer to discuss problems on

an equal footing.


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However, it can be useful to show thinking aloud can be a sharedactivity and eavesdropping on the process will provide a teacherwith valuable and perhaps surprising insights into a childs thinking.It also shows the importance of audience, the need to listen, how to

ask questions and the benefits of working together.


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Evidence suggests that getting children to talk about what they aredoing, before, during and after working on a task, enhances theirability to think about it. Talking about thinking, using inner or outerspeech, encourages more thinking.


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Talking and listening

We often think that if children are havingtrouble in learning they need more time at

it. Research studies seem to back up thisview. They show that there is a relationshipbetween the time the teacher devotes tohaving children engaged in learning

activities and achievement in tests on thecontent of that learning.


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Talking and listening

But it is not simply the time spent that iscrucial but the engagement of childrens

minds in the learning that enhancesachievement. As Piaget said, all knowledgearises from interaction between learnersand the learning environment.


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The message forteachers is that

classrooms should beorganised in waysthat encourage activeinvolvement in learningrather than passiveresponse. Some children

learn best individually,some in groups. But theylearn well when their mindsare engaged and theirthinking is supported andstimulated.


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One way to encouragechildrens efforts inconstructing understanding

is to question their thinking.The child will often try makesense of a question nomatter how bizarre it seems.

Asking children to respondto bizarre questions canproduce interesting results.


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To the question, One day therewere two flies crawling up a wall,which got to the top first? Five-year-old Meeta replied, The oneon the left. when asked why, sheexplained, Because hes thebiggest. To the same question,Mohit (aged 4 years 11 months)

replied The first one. Whenasked why that fly got the topfirst, he responded Because hestarted first, silly.


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When asked other questions that were intended to beunanswerable, such as Is milk bigger than water? and Isred heavier than yellow? children almost invariably providedanswers. Children are ingenious in trying to make sense ofsituation presented to them and in creating their ownframeworks of understanding.


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They take the fragments of meanings they find in thequestions and transform them into something identifiable andcoherent. When it was explained that the questions he hadbeen answering were really unanswerable, 6-year-old Rahulreplied, theyre not! Ive just answered them!


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In Finland they have a proverb, When afool talks to a wise man, who benefits the

most? Similarly, it is difficult to know whobenefits most from the interaction betweenchild and adult. Through talking andlistening the adult learns much about whatand how the child thinks and given thefresh perspective of the childs-eye view ofthe world.


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The child also learns how to shapethoughts in words and how to

communicate his understanding of theworld. Ways to encourage the child toextend his thinking through talking

include the following:


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PUSHING allow the child think timeduring questions-and-answer or discussion.Waiting for an answer demonstrates a trustin the childs ability to answer, an

expectation of thoughtfulness even if thesilence sometimes seems to beinterminably long!


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Acceptingdo not rush tojudgement ona childs response; give the child time and

give yourself time to reply in a thoughtfulway. Ways of accepting a childs idea areto restate it, to apply it, to recognise it,compare it to another idea or simply toacknowledge her view.


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Clarifying indicates that the teacher doesnot understand fully what the child is trying

to say. Instead of rushing in to explain tothe child what he is trying to say, the adult

requests more information and invites thechild to elaborate on his idea. Can youexplain what you mean by.? Tell meagain, I couldnt quite understand.


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Facilitating means sustaining talking and

thinking through feedback and response.The teacher needs to provide opportunitiesfor the child to check her ideas to see if they

are correct.Are

yousure?

Lets check itand see.


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Challengingto be understood by others is part ofthe stimulus a child need but children also needchallenge and should be encouraged to challengeeach other and adults. Do you agree with WHAT

/another child says? Can you see any problems?What do you think?

Challenging

language and thinking skills

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