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Theory and Practice

of Developing Undergraduates’ Critical Thinking

Through Sustained-Content Language Teaching

Beijing

2007.5.16

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Part I Introduction

What’s needed? What’s taught?

What’s happened?

How?

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What’s needed?

To be functionally literate

To be academically literate

To be able to use English to gather,

synthesize, and evaluate information of

content areas

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What’s taught?

To improve students’ general English proficiency

To be able to interact efficiently in social

situations

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What’s happened?

Generally, students’ proficiency in general

English does not correlate with their proficiency

in academic English.

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Most students thought they knew English, but were

unable to understand the lectures and the readings in

their bilingual classes.

Bilingual teachers could not follow their students’

essays written in English. After several paragraphs,

they were quite unsure as to what the essays were

about.

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Specifically, most students did not lack the ways

to make their ideas, but the way argumentation is

made in English.

To sum up, a gap exists between what’s needed

and what’s taught.

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How to bridge the gap?

To define sustained-content language teaching

approach (SCLT)

To elaborate on why SCLT is recommended

To describe the one-year teaching experiment

to prove the applicability of SCLT to Chinese

EFL instruction

To provide the students’ feedback from the

experiment to support the practical efficacy of

SCLT

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Part II Theoretical Foundations

The two major components SCLT consists of

(Murphy & Stoller 2001):

A focus on the exploration of a content area, or carri

er topic; and

A complementary focus on L2 learning and teachin

g

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The four primary advantages SCLT has (Pally 200

0):Psychologically, it enables students who are interested

in what they study recall more information, synthesize i

t, and elaborate on it better than non-motivated learner

s;

Linguistically, it recycles words and forms, easing me

mory and acquisition; calls on students’ prior knowledg

e and schema; and builds schema through progressive

units of content study.

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Pedagogically, it lends itself to “scaffolding” (where a

student works with the teacher or a more advanced

student to grasp a challenging concept or skill) and

“private speech” (which helps students understand an

idea or rehearse a presentation), both of which

facilitate learning in that scaffolding occurs whenever

students help one another and private speech occurs

when students face challenges they must work

through; and

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Collegially, it enhances relations between language

teaching staff and content-area instructors, where the

former are usually separated from the rest of the

campus because of their status of ESL/EFL instruction.

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The two natures SCLT possesses to devel

op critical thinking skills:

Content

…in order to grasp and manipulate content, students

must learn critical thinking skills, but in order to learn t

hese skills, students must study content that is compl

ex enough and enduring enough that argumentation a

nd rhetorical conventions can be identified, practiced,

and questioned (Pally 2000).

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Sustained

Students can develop their critical thinking skills as well

as vocabulary rhetorical devices only through continual

practice and reflection on their work. However, our

current language classes generally cover readings on

various topics and change topics often. As a result,

students have no opportunity to stick with one subject

and, therefore, have little to synthesize, question, and

evaluate.

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To sum up, the four reasons why SCLT is

recommended to bridge the gap:

It helps students accumulate information, with which they

are able to gather, synthesize, and evaluate what they

read;

It helps students become familiar with the rhetorical

conventions, which makes their ideas more appreciated

academically;

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It helps students practice in language class the

critical thinking skills, which they will need for and can

transfer to future subjects, thereby helping them

grapple with future academic/professional demands;

and

It helps students practice their linguistic skills, thus

improving their language proficiency.

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Part III Pedagogical Application

Subjects

180 freshmen from the School of Finance at Shandong

Economic University

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Materials

Experimental Class:

Textbook: Business English Integrated Course

Extensive readings: Readings on each subtopic

selected by the teacher to replace the ones

concerning general English in each unit

Control Class

Textbook: 21st Century College English, including

both intensive and extensive readings

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The profile of the teacher

A young female lecturer, with a Master’s degree and an

experience of about 5 years in college English teaching

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Class activities Step 1 Pre-reading activity

Step 2 Studying the text

Step 3 Enhancing knowledge through exercises

Step 4 Furthering knowledge through additional

readings

Step 5 Synthesizing concepts through writing

Another activity Discipline-focused writing

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Results

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Table 1 Comparison of CEFE Means of EC and CC (Fall 2005)(n=180)

Items of CEFE

Means SD

t-valueSig.

(2-tailed)EC CC EC CC

Listening Comprehension (35%) 20.99 20.41 4.294 4.942 .426 -.801

Vocabulary & Structure (15%) 10.93 11.23 1.740 1.755 -1.183 .240

Reading Comprehension (20%) 17.79 14.09 2.251 2.128 6.438 .000

Cloze (20%) 13.03 13.27 2.528 2.672 -.635 .527

C-E Translation (10%) 9.39 9.29 1.545 1.424 .449 .655

Total Scores (100%) 72.13 68.29 4.290 4.790 .453 .674

Speaking (15) 11.27 11.08 1.293 1.376 1.076 .285

P≤.05

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Table 2 Comparison of CEFE Means of EC and CC (Spring 2006)(n=180)

Items of CEFE

Means SD

t-valueSig.

(2-tailed)EC CC EC CC

Listening Comprehension (30%) 21.23 21.16 2.903 3.174 .337 -.966

Vocabulary & Structure (15%) 11.55 11.79 0.970 0.900 1.169 0.246

Reading Comprehension (20%) 15.42 12.87 2.583 2.732 6.314 .000

Cloze (10%) 7.11 7.04 1.283 1.005 .183 .856

E-C Translation (10%) 8.06 7.94 1.248 1.173 1.153 .252

Writing (15%) 12.05 10.02 1.230 1.438 9.974 .000

Total Scores (100%) 75.42 70.82 5.187 5.121 1.557 .180

Speaking (15) 11.06 10.83 1.248 1.173 1.153 .252

P≤.05

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Table 3 BEFE Means of EC (Fall 2005 & Spring 2006)(n=90)

Items of Exams

Means

Fall 2005 Spring 2006

Listening Comprehension (20%) 14.08 13.8

Reading Comprehension (50%) 39.25 39.19

E-C Translation (10%) 8.63 8.3

Writing (20%) 15.26 15.12

Total Scores (100%) 77.22 76.41

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SCLT improved significantly the students’ critical

thinking skills.

SCLT enriched to some degree the students’

knowledge of content areas.

SCLT did not impair the students’ performances in

general English learning.

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Part IV Students Feedback

Examples of the questions Do you think using the readings on business as the content of

College English Reading course a good idea?

Do you think this course will help you to work on your bilingual

course in your junior academic year?

Would you like to go on with this course in the following

semester?

Please give your comments on the pedagogy of SCLT

(advantages and disadvantages).

Please give your suggestions on it.

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Students’ responses

96% students answered “Yes” to the first and third

questions, and 84% to the second question.

They thought the thinking style they developed in the

course would most help them to work on their bilingual

course.

Their improved language proficiency would also help them

to understand the probably more complex subject content-

area

But they did not think that the content they learned would

be much helpful if it was unrelated to the future content-

area.

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96% students offered favorable comments on SCLT.

Most of them reported that the central benefit was the

accumulation of the information, which made them more

able to develop their ideas, provide more chances to

become familiar with rhetorical conventions, and increase

their confidence in their grasp of both, as well as

language skills.

Another benefit of the pedagogy students reported was

motivation.

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Part V Implications for Ongoing Work

At the present stage of our knowledge of L2

learning, connecting theory with language

teaching practice is a risky business. Although

we are quite confident that the pedagogy of

SCLT rests on theoretical foundations of several

fields, its real research substantiation in Chinese

college English teaching has yet to begin.

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Some challenges SCLT presents us:

Positive administrative support

Financial and physical resources

A faculty passionately dedicated to SCLT and professionally

skilled in its philosophy and strategies

Curriculum planning and development

The decision of a certain content-area and appropriate levels of

discipline-specific vocabulary and conventions

A system to assess and monitor program outcomes

Students who are linguistically and affectively prepared for SCLT

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Questions are welcome.

Email: lina2128@gmail.com