Abstract
This paper explores the use of Computer Supported Collaborative Learning Environments (CSCLE) as multimodal spaces for promoting critical thinking for English as Second Language Learning (L2) education from multiple perspectives (Technology, Thinking Skills and Interaction). The exploration focuses on the use of a multitouch tabletop, and an accompanying application called Digital Mysteries, as affordances in CSCLE’s for making reasoning skill-based thinking visible for L2 learning in Higher Education.Despite the worldwide promotion of teaching thinking in L2 education, it is not always easy for teachers to identify the types of thinking skills being targeted in L2 pedagogical tasks. To the authors’ knowledge, little empirical interactional evidence is available to demonstrate critical thinking in L2 learner talk during group work. This paper examines interactions among three groups of Chinese English Language learners at a higher education institution in a CSCLE. Video data were collected of students’ thinking-in-action whilst engaging in multimodal interactions in the environment. Results show that new technologies can provide innovative and empirically driven ways in which L2 learners’ thinking is externalised and how critical reasoning can be tracked, promoted, evaluated and self-regulated. The findings suggest that collaborations in a CSCLE can support the completion of tasks embedding high levels of cognitive complexity by L2 learners with effective use of limited cognitive resources. This leads to a number of recommendations about integrating the teaching of critical thinking skills into the L2 classroom using CSCLE technologies.
Highlights
Critical thinking has been recognised as one of the key skills for citizens in the 21st century
The Digital Mysteries application was not designed for L2 learners, when used within the context of a Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL), it holds a number of features which we identified as showing its relevance for use with L2 learners in this study: Fig. 3
In this paper we have demonstrated that critical thinking and reasoning in the L2 is of high level of cognitive complexity, and the completion of tasks of high level cognitive complexity in a Computer Supported Collaborative Learning environments (CSCLEs) clearly prompts students to articulate their thinking and importantly, make it visible
Summary
Critical thinking has been recognised as one of the key skills for citizens in the 21st century. Empirical studies of Chinese college students have found that students of non-English majors perform better than those of English majors in critical thinking tests This observed ‘absence of critical thinking’ (Huang, 1998) was reported of students from other non-English speaking countries, and an overemphasis on language skills and on. Empirical studies on students’ willingness to communicate found that skills in reasoning and critical thinking could influence students’ ability to initiate or carry on communication in a L2 (Peng, 2014). This led us to question whether reported problems in oral communication are due to language deficiency or cognitive overload involved in the processes of conceptualisation and representation of ideas
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