Raisa Khussain- senior teacher

Kazakh state Teacher Training University, Almaty

Students’ thinking abilities and language development

Aristotle believed that the depths of one’s thinking governed the types of language one could use. Language is fundamentally linked to thought by the manner in which information is stored.[1]

In fact, some language philosophers postulate the existence of a deep level, linguistically-based abstract code that is at the root of all thinking and intention. One cannot think in a content vacuum. Sophisticated understanding and mastery of higher-order challenges occur only through the use of knowledge in a subject or topic, whether it be consumer decision making, the design of a bridge, or critique of a theater performance.[2] Of course, a subject can be taught in ways that fail to promote thinking, but thinking may not be taught apart from knowledge. Some would argue that the proper teaching of a subject, in this case the language arts, is equivalent to, or sufficient for, promoting higher-order thinking because it demands that students interpret, analyze, and manipulate knowledge to face new challenges within the subject and because it draws the student closer to the thinking of experts in the field.[3] Beyond substantive knowledge of the topic, students need analytic knowledge (e.g., the structure of well-reasoned arguments, distinctions between empirical, conceptual and normative claims, criteria to judge reliability of evidence) and metacognitive knowledge (i.e., awareness and self-monitoring of one’s thought processes). We now believe that language abilities and thinking competencies shape each other .[4]

Both are of equal intensity in fostering learning. Through the power of language use, the quantity and quality of students’ thoughts can be improved. Through reading, writing, speaking, and listening, transitory thoughts can be transformed into lasting principles. This transformation occurs because single ideas enter the mind as cognitive entries, capable of bonding with collective categories of former thoughts. Block (1993), further suggests that, these categorical thoughts are then stored as dense cognitive structures called schema. Each schema is the collection of learning’s, experiences, emotions, and values one has about a topic. Nerve endings of schema in the brain expand in length and breadth as one discusses, writes, and reads about a concept. This depth and breadth eventually become wisdom as more and more dendrites (branches from nerve endings) are forced to intertwine.[5] Thus, if adults and children fail to ignite students’ thinking, writing, reading, speaking, and listening their wisdom is limited.[6] In relation to this, Gardner and Hatcher (1989) after having reviewed programs attempting to teach thinking skills state, the relationship between language and thinking has been a topic of debate for a long time. However, nearly every program we have considered acknowledges the importance of language facility to effective thinking in one way or another...(Students) must become an adroit manipulator of language, logical forms, computer programs, or other symbol systems that, in effect, can serve as vehicles for thought (p.48).

Therefore, since students’ thinking abilities and language development are

of equal value and influence upon the depth of their communication, teachers

should develop both competencies if students’ potentials are to be fulfilled. In

light of this, it seems important to understand how the four main components of

language instruction: listening; speaking; reading; and writing, relate to the

development of thinking skills.

The importance of overt speech as a tool for enhancing thinking was evidenced in 1974 when the National Institute of Education in the United States identified overt speech in the classroom as one aspect of its research agenda.

Cazden (1979) has shown that the use of oral language by both teachers and students serves to establish a classroom atmosphere that either elicits or discourages certain types of thinking. Cuing and questioning are two primary ways that teachers use overt speech to elicit specific types of thought. Cuing involves teachers’ use of overt speech to signal specific learning episodes. That is, teachers verbally signal the type of learning expected within a given period of time. Ideally students then retrieve appropriate mental scripts to match the learning episode. Elaborate coding schemes have been developed to describe the different forms of teacher language used as cues for various episodes.[7]

Cues such as verbal advanced organizers that signal the structure of content are among the most powerful. That is, when students learn new content, the structure that information takes in the long-term memory is greatly influenced by how the teacher talks about the content . A number of studies have shown that structure of content as stored in students’ long-term memory corresponds more closely to the a priori structure of the content after verbal instruction.[9] Questioning is a second way that teachers use overt speech to elicit specific types of thought. Redfield and Rousseau (1981) suggest that higher- level questions appear to be instrumental in enhancing student thinking. A subset of the research on teacher questioning is the research on teacher use of “wait time.” Expanding on Rowe’s (1974) original definition of wait time as pausing for several seconds after asking a question to give students time to think before being called on to answer, Tobin (1987) identified a number of different types of wait time (e.g., the pause following any teacher utterance and any student utterance, the pause following any student utterance and preceding any teacher utterance). He concluded that extended teacher wait time after asking questions should be viewed as a necessary but insufficient condition for higher, cognitive- level achievement.

Results obtained by Granato (1983) and Knickerbocker (1984) suggest that a longer wait time after questions provides students with opportunities to get

involved in verbal interactions. Similarly, extended wait time has been associated

with more student discourse, more student-to-student interactions , decrease in student confusion, higher achievement and in complexity and cognitive level of student responses.[9]

In the case of reading, Rosenblatt’s (1978) work on the transactional nature of reading has helped elevate reading to a process that, by definition, includes critical and creative thought. Perhaps the most comprehensive attempt to incorporate the high-literacy tradition, which emphasized critical and creative thinking under the general rubric of rhetorical invention, within the framework of the language arts is Moffett’s “interaction” approach.[10]

He conceptualized the “the universe of discourse” to encompass: the linguistic models of listening, speaking, reading and writing; the different forms of audience; and the egocentricity versus the exo-centricity (decent ration) of the thought being experienced. The high-literacy nature of Moffett’s approach is evident in its emphasis on student’s creation of new products (e.g., essays,

plays, poems), which implicitly demand attention to invention, arrangement, style, delivery, synthesis, extension, and other activities associated with critical and creative thought. One of the powerful reading interventions is reciprocal teaching, which is fundamentally metacognitive in nature.

The teacher models the overt summarizing, questioning, clarifying, and predicting processes, which are assumed to be internal processes executed during reading, while students comment on the quality of questions, and summaries, and try to

construct better ones. After an intervention period of several weeks in which reciprocal teaching was practiced daily, middle-school students who had received instruction had higher reading performance than control groups and maintained this higher performance even after an eight-week period without instruction. More strikingly, noted Resnick (1987), scores on science and social studies comprehension tests given in the classroom rather than in the reciprocal teaching laboratory also rose significantly for the experimental subjects. In terms of the relationship of writing to thinking, Nickerson has stated that: “Writing is viewed not only as a medium of thought but also as a vehicle for developing it” . It is the robust nature of the difficulty of the writing task that renders it a powerful tool for enhancing thinking. By definition, the composing process is a highly-complex cognitive task. For example, in a study of writing performance within a number of disciplines, (Perkins, 1981) found that the ability to produce final copy easily and on the first draft is rare even among professionals.

Thinking seems to be inherent in almost all activities encompassing the

four language components. However, merely planning and teaching these four

language components in classrooms do not seem to guarantee the development

of student thinking.

The List of the Used Literature:

1.Marzano, Language and thinking. In James flood. NY 1991). 7p

2.Onosko and Newmann, Creating powerful thinking in teachers and students: diverse perspectives. 1994).8p

3.Glaser, 1984; McPeck, 1981; Nickerson, 1988; Prawat, 1991),8p

4.Block, 1993 Teaching the language arts, Allyn and Boston).8p

5.Rosenblatt, The reader , the text and the poem. Carbondale1978; Smith, 1978).8p

6.Collins Thinking development: an agenda for the twenty-first century. 1992).8p

7. Mehan, Learning lessons. Cambridge.1979; Sinclair & Coulthard, 1975).9p

8. Moore, Discourse production in comprehension .Norwood, 1977).9p

9. Johnson, 1967, 1969; Johnson, Cox & Curran, 1970). 9p

10. DeTure & Miller, 1985; Fagan, Hassler & Szabo, 1981). 9p.