A PBLT approach to teaching ESL speaking, writing, and thinking skills

A PBLT approach to teaching ESL

speaking, writing, and thinking skills

Gholamhossein Shahini and A. Mehdi Riazi

This paper introduces Philosophy-based Language Teaching (PBLT) as a newapproach to developing productive language and thinking skills in students. Theapproach involves posing philosophical questions and engaging students indialogues within a community of enquiry context. To substantiate the approach,the paper reports a study in which 34 university students from one of the majoruniversities in Iran were randomly assigned to two groups: one experimental(PBLT/led by philosophical questions) and the other control (conventional/directed by ordinary or non-philosophical questions). Results revealed that therewas a significant difference between the two groups with students in theexperimental group outperforming those in the control group on both speakingandwriting tasks. The findings of the study have implications for all stakeholders inELT locally and internationally.

Introduction Reflections on our language teaching experience over the years haveprovided us with the interesting and even surprising observation thatwhenever a philosophical question was encountered or raised in ourEnglish language classes, students would automatically become ready andmotivated to actively participate in class discussions. Our observation alsoshowed that in such discussions and negotiations of meaning, students’word range and the length of their talk increased and they would even staybehind after the class to continue the discussion and get their points across.This interesting observationwas supported by a number of studies (Haynes2002; van der Leeuw 2004); we came across on the effect of philosophicalquestions anddialogues on students’ and children’s L1 ability. The issuewasfurther consolidated by other studies (for example Ofsted 1997) thatindicated that regular practice of philosophical enquiry led to significantgains in students’ overall use of their native language and that students whohad engaged in philosophy-based discussion made more gains in readingthan those who had not (Murris 1992). Given the potentialities ofphilosophical discussion and its power to enhance students’communication skills and thinking abilities and the evidence of gains instudents’ L1 development, we were attracted by the idea of investigating theeffect of introducing this approach into the field of ESL/EFL learning andteaching. The core of the approach is to engage students in discussions thatrevolve around philosophical questions. The point, however, should bemade clear that by ‘philosophy’ we do not mean complex, abstract, and

170 ELT Journal Volume 65/2 April 2011; doi:10.1093/elt/ccq045ªª The Author 2010. Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved.Advance Access publication September 16, 2010

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specialized philosophical discussions one might expect in Philosophy asa discipline, rather we mean to encourage students to plunge deeper intoa question or set of questions by discussing their understanding of theconcepts and reasoning for such an understanding. In Philosophy-basedLanguage Teaching (PBLT), as in recent approaches to language teachingsuch as Communicative Language Teaching, Cooperative LanguageLearning, Task-based Language Teaching, etc., students use language tolearn it. Language inPBLT, as in the above approaches, is viewedholistically.In PBLT,where the classroom is considered as a social community, studentswork together to complete a philosophical task. Looked at from thisperspective, PBLT is in line with Vygotsky’s (1978) view that holds learningas a social and constructivist activity and language as a tool for thinking. It issuggested by Vygotsky that social interaction is of major importance indeveloping language capacity. He believes that thought and language areinitially separate but become interdependent during acts of communicationsince meaning is created through interaction. According to Vygotsky, it islanguage that makes abstract thinking possible. From this perspective,PBLT allows its users to use language to imagine, manipulate, create newideas, and share those ideas with others. Language in PBLT is thus amentaltool that each member of the social community (classroom) uses to thinkand it is through language and communication that abstract thinkingbecomes possible.

The significance ofPBLT

The significance of this approach to L2 instruction is twofold:

1 The enhancement of thinking ability through L2 instruction.2 The improvement of L2 proficiency, especially productive skills, throughphilosophical discussion.

Strictly following theparadigmofLipman,Sharp, andOscanyan (1980), theterm ‘Philosophy’ with a capital ‘P’ is not considered here. According tothem, philosophy does not imply complex philosophical debates amonggreat philosophers nor is the aim to teach the subject ‘philosophy’ tosophisticated bookish minds in university lecture halls. Philosophy inPBLT is meant to encourage ordinary students to think critically andcreatively about the world around them, to delve deeper into subjects,and not blindly accept or memorize whatever is fed into their minds.Philosophy, in this sense, as Cam (1995) indicates, is the richest source andtool used for the cultivation of higher thinking and enquiry into themeaning of concepts that are central to our lives. Lipman (2003) holdsthat this viewof philosophy taps one’s natural curiosity and sense of wonderand puzzlement. Philosophy as such assists us in practising theconsideration of questions most of us have wondered about from time totime; questions which are familiar and meaningful to most people allover the world. According to Gregory (2008), we always ask ourselvesphilosophical questions like ‘What is reality/beauty/democracy/justice/art/death/love/God/language/truth/mind?’ ‘What is the right thing todo?’‘Does everything have a cause?’ ‘What makes something beautiful?’ andso on. Viewing philosophy from this perspective, people of any age,even children (cf. Gregory 2008), can be taught to philosophize tobecome social thinkers in future. A typical example in this respect is

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a study done by Daniel, Lafortune, Pallascio, and Schleifer (1999) whoposed philosophical questions on mathematics to elementary schoolchildren aged 9–13. Questions such as ‘Does zero signify nothing?’ ‘Wasmathematics invented or discovered?’ and the like. The languageproduction and reasoning of these children is surprising.More examples ofphilosophical dialogues between Lipman and children can also be found inLipman (1993).

A framework for PBLT Lipman’s (2003) framework informs PBLT for L2 teaching.

The framework includes

1 The presentation of a stimulus (for example a reading or a multimedia‘text’) to create an open-ended issue, concept, or situation.

2 Structured students’ cooperation to formulate specific questions arisingfrom the issue or concept.

3 The selection of a single question for the whole group to discuss andexplore through dialogue aided by the facilitator.

The use of philosophy provides two effective tools to promote good thinkingin the classroom:

1 community of enquiry2 philosophical dialogue.

In the community of enquiry (see, for example, Kennedy 2004; van derLeeuw 2004), students work together to generate and then answer theirown questions about the philosophical issues contained in purposefulwritten materials or a wide range of other resources. The process ofphilosophical exploration in this environment encourages students to takeincreased responsibility for their own learning process and to develop asindependent and self-correcting learners. Students develop ‘intellectualcourage’ to put forward their own views in a group. Lipman (op.cit.) believesthat in philosophical community of enquiry, the following skills will bedeveloped:

cognitive skills, making distinctions, seeing connections, identifyingfallacies, finding analogies/disanalogies, seeing broader perspectives,formulating and testing criteria, sticking to the point, openmindedness,being willing to offer and accept criticism, valuing reasonableness,increasing tolerance against opposing ideas, drawing inferences, etc.(pp. 167–71)

Philosophical questions, according to Gregory (2008: 2–3), do not call forcorrect answers: they refer to problems that cannot be solved by calculation,consulting books, or by referring to one’s own memories. To answer suchquestions, one has to consider her or his own depth of thoughts. In contrastto routine questions which call upon students to show their knowledge ofestablished facts, philosophical questions require the student to think forher/himself and they demand further investigations that invite reflection(Cam 1995). The subject matters of philosophy for negotiation are thosecommon, central, and contestable concepts that underpin both generalexperience of human life and all academic disciplines. Appendix 1 providessome examples of philosophical questions in both areas.

172 Gholamhossein Shahini and A. Mehdi Riazi

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Procedures forrunning a PBLTclassroom

Atypical PBLTclassroom session beginswith students reading a source textnot practisedbefore.After reading, the students are invited individually or incollaboration with their peers to come up with one or two philosophicalquestions that the text has made them think or wonder about. Thesequestions, which are primarily constructed based on the concepts used inthe text, set the agenda for discussion. Each student then reads her/hisquestion to thewhole class and themost interesting ones are selected by thestudents themselves to be discussed. Students are allowed to code switchwhen necessary in order not to lose their train of thoughts while discussingthe issues. The role of the instructor is mainly to facilitate studentdiscussions by monitoring and helping students to keep on track. Duringoral discussion, the instructor takes some personal notes, writes down themain points raised and the important words used, and translates the L1words used by students into L2. At the end of the discussion and whilestudents have a break, the instructor divides the board into two halves andoutlines the main points discussed in one column and puts the importantwords and those translated into L2 in another. Then students are asked towrite individually an essay on the main points using the materials on theboard if needed. These are checked by the instructor out of class for eachsession and returned to the students with feedback before the next classhour. Each class session lasts for twohourswith the following tentative timeallocation—reading the text and producing questions: 15 minutes, oraldiscussion: 1 hour 15 minutes, and writing: 30 minutes.

Considering the potentialities of philosophical discussions in enhancingcommunication skills and finding some evidence from the literature forthis, we hypothesized that exposing ESL/EFL students to PBLTwouldenhance their speaking and writing as well as their thinking skills. Thishypothesismotivatedus to set up the following study to investigate the valueof a PBLT approach to ESL/EFL teaching.

The studyParticipants andmaterials

To investigate our hypothesis, we set up an experiment to see if PBLTwouldproduce better results than conventional approaches to ESL/EFL teachingand learning currently in practice in contexts like Iran. To selectparticipants, an invitation letter was posted on the bulletin boards of thethree colleges of Engineering, Sciences, and Humanities at a majoruniversity in Iran. Englishmajor studentswere excluded from the invitationgiven their distinct level of English proficiency as compared to otherstudents. Initially, 82 students from the three disciplines with differentmajors replied to the invitation letter and participated in an interviewsession with three experienced raters who assessed them. Of these,53 students within the age range of 19–25 (who turned out to have thesame intermediate proficiency level) were chosen, with only 34 studentseventually able to participate in the study. The rest withdrew for differentreasons, including a clash with their regular classes. Using randomassignment, the students were placed into the experimental (N ¼ 17:10 female and 7 male) and control (N ¼ 17: 9 female and 8 male) groups.

The basic instructional materials were 17 texts (each for one session) ofdiffering length and topic with the criterion of having the potentiality ofbeing subjected to deep and philosophical discussion. The averagereadability index of the texts was 75.1 indicating rather simple texts.


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For a sample text, along with two types of questions (philosophical andnon-philosophical) see Appendix 2.

Data collectionprocedures

The classes were run four days a week (two days for experimental andtwo days for control) over one semester (17 sessions). Both classes weretaught by the same teacher.Before the study, the instructorof the twogroupstook part in some philosophical thinking training sessions to becomefamiliar with the procedures of running a philosophical community andhow to provoke students into raising philosophical questions. Theparticipants in each group received pre- and post-tests in both speaking andwriting.The speakingperformanceof theparticipants inbothgroups inpre-and post-test was audio recorded with their consent for subsequentrating.Their pre- andpost-writingessayswerealso collected.Their speakingwas rated using the ‘Speaking scale: analytic descriptors of spokenlanguage’ from the Common European Framework (Council of Europe2001), and their writing was rated using the ‘ESL composition profile scale’by Jacobs, Zinkgraf, Wormuth, Hartfiel, and Hughey (1981). Intra- andinter-rater reliability of speaking and writing ratings were checked and theindexes were 0.92 and 0.90 for speaking and 0.95 and 0.92 for writing,respectively. With the high reliability indexes, all the speaking and writingtasks were then rated by the lead rater.

Results anddiscussion

To compare the speaking andwriting performance of the participants in theexperimental and control groups, gain scores were computed using theirpre- and post-tests. Table 1 presents the results of the gain scores forspeaking and writing of students in both groups.

Group Pre-writing

Post-writing

Pre-speaking

Post-speaking

Gainscorewriting

Gainscorespeaking

Control

Mean 67.58 76.76 44.58 56.29 9.17 11.70N 17 17 17 17 17 17Standard deviation 7.16 7.57 7.73 7.09 1.18 2.08

Experimental


Total


table 1Descriptive statistics forpre- and post-tests ofwriting and speaking andthe gain scores

Ascanbe seen inTable 1, the gain scores of bothgroups inwriting (control¼9.17, experimental¼ 15.29) and speaking (control¼ 11.70, experimental¼22.17) show that students in the experimental group had a much highergain score in both skills. To find out if this difference was significant,multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was used. MANOVA is thesame as analysis of variance except that it is possible to have two dependent


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variables in the analysis (see Ary, Jacobs, and Razavieh 2002 for furtherexplanation). Table 2 presents the results of the MANOVA test.

Source Dependentvariable

Type III

sum of squaresdf Mean

squareF Sig.

Corrected model Gainspeak 931.882a 1 931.882 90.364 0.000Gainwriting 318.118b 1 318.118 175.513 0.000

Intercept Gainspeak 9758.118 1 9758.118 946.242 0.000Gainwriting 5089.882 1 5089.882 2.808E3 0.000

Group Gainspeak 931.882 1 931.882 90.364 0.000Gainwriting 318.118 1 318.118 175.513 0.000

Error Gainspeak 330.000 32 10.313Gainwriting 58.000 32 1.813

Total Gainspeak 11020.000 34Gainwriting 5466.000 34

Corrected total Gainspeak 1261.882 33Gainwriting 376.118 33

table 2Results of the MANOVA

tests of between-subjectseffects

aR squared ¼ 0.738 (adjusted R squared ¼ 0.730).bR squared ¼ 0.846 (adjusted R squared ¼ 0.841).

As Table 2 indicates, there was a significant difference between the twogroups in terms of students’ performance on speaking and writing skills.While the significant results between the two groups are probably due toPBLT, we tend to be cautious not to attribute this totally to PBLT given thecomplexity of human participants and the host of other variables at play insuch experimental situations.

It was, however, observed that students in the experimental group ascompared to those in the control group were much more motivated toactively participate in discussions. This might be for the following reasons:

1 Due to the challengingnature of philosophical questions, there were veryheated debates in so far as the studentswere eager to stay longer in classesand continue the discussions within and even outside the class.

2 The students in the experimental group sent many follow-up emails tothe course instructor discussing the points raised in the previoussessions, while students in the control group sent few emails to follow-upissues.

When students in the experimental group were asked what they thoughtencouraged their active participation, they referred to theuniquenature andcharacteristics of the questions and discussions. In particular, theyhighlighted the following points:

1 The questions were thought-provoking, discouraging superficialdiscussion, promoting a reflective and critical stance towards issues, anddemanding precise language to define and explain concepts.

2 The discussions helped to enhance tolerance among students rather thanimposing ideas.

3 In such critical dialogues, the mind was so engaged in thinking andproviding reasoning that students would forget they werecommunicating in English and this helped them to use the languageproductively although with some code switching.


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4 The discussions were so interesting that students were not aware of thepassing of time.

Another interesting observation was that all students were interested intaking part in the discussions contrary to the situation in the control groupinwhich students preferred to be silent unless asked to respond. Thismightbe due to the fact that there is no one correct answer to philosophicalquestions and thus, every student can relate her/himself to the questionsand discussions.

Some advice forteachers

ESL/EFL teachers can become familiar with how to use PBLT in theirclasses by reading recommended texts and, if needed, through shorttraining sessions. Some resources are listed below to help in this regard. Tochoose a suitable text, teachers can just ask themselves whether the textraises any question that cannot simply be answered by observation,calculation, or by reference to established facts. If the text explores an issueor prompts a question of this kind, then that question or issue is almostcertain to be philosophical. Moreover, the Institute for the Advancement ofPhilosophy for Children has published curriculummaterials and manualsfor teachers with prepared exercises and discussion plans (for moreinformation refer to Gregory 2008: 11–16). With some adaptation, thisrecommended curriculum could be an ideal resource for the field of ELT.Given that a philosophy-based conversation class is not a reading class andthe texts are just a means to motivate students to talk, simple texts must bechosen so that students will not face problems comprehending the text.Therefore, evena story like the one inAppendix 2 canbeusedwith adults fordiscussion from their own perspectives. In addition to texts, othermaterialsand topics, films, pictures, recordings, and so on can be used asa springboard for philosophical discussions.

Reading philosophical questions and dialogues in miscellaneousdisciplines presented in Lipman et al. (1980), Cam (1995), Haynes (2002),Gregory (2008), and visiting sites like www.askphilosophers.org seems tobe an efficient way for teachers to learn how to think about and producephilosophical questions.

The role of the teacher in PBLT is that of a facilitator and conductor. She/heassists students to clarify and formulate their ideas and to set up appropriatedialogues and interaction. The facilitator plays Socrates’ role, askingquestions to help students deepen their perceptions, find justification fortheir opinions, and contribute to the discussion. The PBLT facilitator seesher/himself as a co-inquirer with the students (Gregory 2008). Asa facilitator, teachers both guide students and perform as a role model byasking open-ended questions, presenting alternative views, seekingclarification, questioning reasons, and by demonstrating self-correctingbehaviours. For example, the teacher can handle the class by asking thefollowing questions:

For ‘clarity’:Do you mean that . . . ?By . . . do you mean . . . or . . . or maybe something else?When you say . . . , are you supposing/assuming that . . .?


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For ‘exploring disagreement’:Why do you think you are right?What makes you think she is wrong?Can you justify your answer?Can you think of a better reason?

For ‘considering alternatives’:Does anyone have a different idea?How else could we look at this?

For ‘appealing to criteria’:According to what criteria do you say that?

For ‘making appropriate distinctions’:Is this case basically the same as that?

For ‘jumping to a conclusion’:Can we be certain that just because of so-and-so, it must be the case that

such-and-such?

It is through this kind of modelling that students eventually internalize theprocedures of enquiry. The best and easiest way to train students how to askphilosophical questions is to raise some philosophical questions in the firstsession or by drawing students’ attention to the concepts behind the wordsused in the text.

One important final point to be mentioned is the flexibility of PBLT in thesense that it can be used and inserted into lesson plans as and when it isneeded.As such, the class canhave its routine syllabus butwhen the teachercomes across an interesting term or concept and notices students’enthusiasm, he/she can lead students to philosophical discussion. As soonas the teacher learns that the discussions are going beyond students’tolerance and capacity, she/he can shift to other themes and activities.

If PBLTfinds its properplace in language teaching, thendifferent aspects ofthe approach will certainly need to be dealt within teacher trainingprogrammes.

Conclusion This paper has attempted to present PBLTas a new approach to ESL/EFLteaching and learning. PBLT is focused on three objectives, first of all toindirectly foster students’ communication skills of speaking and writing,secondly to make students reconsider their perceptions of different issuesthrough raising logical reasons for their opinions, deconstructing theirassumed beliefs, prejudice, and concepts, and finally not to accept thingsblindly by just imitation and memorization. This last aspect is especiallyimportant in EFL contexts like Iran where the education system isreductionist, taking away such skills and abilities from students andpushing them towards rote learning andmemorization. Thefindings of ourstudy specifically show that PBLT can play a significant role in fosteringstudents’ L2 productive skills through creating a much-neededenvironment for discussionandnegotiation.Thoughwedidnot use specificmeasures for students’ attitudes and motivation towards PBLT and we didnot measure their development in thinking and reasoning skills, our


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observations of students’ participation, feedback, and reflections attestedsuch potentialities.

Final revised version received June 2010

ReferencesAry D., L. C. Jacobs, and A. Razavieh. 2002.Introduction to Research in Education. (Sixth edition).Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Thomson Learning.Cam, P. 1995.Thinking Together: Philosophical Inquiryfor the Classroom. Sydney: Hale & Iremonger/PETA.Council of Europe. 2001. CommonEuropean Framework of Reference forLanguage: Learning, Teaching, Assessment.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Daniel, M. F., L. Lafortune, R. Pallascio, andM. Schleifer. 1999. ‘Philosophical reflection andcooperative practices in an elementary schoolmathematics classroom’. Canadian Journal ofEducation 24/4: 426–40.Gregory, M. 2008. Philosophy for Children:A Practitioner Handbook. Montclair, NJ: Institute forthe Advancement of Philosophy for Children.Haynes, J. 2002. Children as Philosophers: Learningthrough Inquiry and Dialogue in the PrimaryClassroom. London: Routledge.Jacobs, H. L., S. A. Zinkgraf, D. R. Wormuth,V. F. Hartfiel, and J. B. Hughey. 1981. Testing ESLComposition: A Practical Approach. Rowley, MA:Newbury House.Kennedy, D. 2004. ‘The role of a facilitator ina community of philosophical inquiry’.Metaphilosophy 35/5: 747–65.Lipman, M. 1993. Thinking Children and Education.Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company.Lipman, M. 2003. Thinking in Education. (Secondedition). New York: Cambridge University Press.

Lipman, M., A. M. Sharp, and F. Oscanyan. 1980.Philosophy in the Classroom. (Second edition).Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.Murris, K. 1992. Teaching Philosophy with PictureBooks. London: Infonet Publications.Ofsted. 1997.Wapping First School OFSTEDInspection Report (1997). Available at http://www.childrenthinking.co.uk/action_govt.htm#index_wapping (accessed on 20 February 2010).Van der Leeuw, K. 2004. ‘Philosophical dialogue andthe search for truth’. Thinking 17/3: 17–23.Vygotsky, L. 1978.Mind in Society: TheDevelopment ofHigher Psychological Processes. Cambridge, MA:Harvard University Press.

The authorsMehdi Riazi is an Associate Professor of AppliedLinguistics, Department of Linguistics, MacquarieUniversity, Australia. His areas of interest includereading andwriting inEnglish as a second language,language testing and evaluation, language teachingmethodology, research methods, and text analysis.Email: [email protected]

Gholamhossein Shahini is a PhD candidate in theDepartment of ForeignLanguages andLinguistics atShiraz University, Iran. He has been teachingEnglish courses for some years. His areas of interestinclude language and critical thinking, needsassessment, language teachingmethodology and itsinterface with the issues of education.Email: [email protected]

Appendix 1Some examples ofphilosophicalquestions

d Philosophical questions on ‘power’ (general)What is power? Does power give pleasure? Can you have power withoutcontrolling other people or things? Are you more powerful if you knowwho you are? If you are controlled by others, can you still be powerful, aslong as you know who you are? For some people to be powerful, mustothers be weak? Could everyone be equally powerful? If yes, what wouldhappen then?

d Philosophical questions on ‘nature’ (academic)How did the world come to be? Are humans part of nature? What isnatural and unnatural? Does nature have purposes or innate values?Can and should nature be controlled? Do animals and eco-system haverights? Can nature be cruel? (Why?) Is it bad for species to go extinct?


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Appendix 2The tale of PeterRabbit (a summary)

The story is about a rabbit (Peter) who was living with hismother and threesisters. One day, Peter’s mother was going out and warned her childrennot to go into Mr. McGregor’s garden because their father had an accidentthere.

The little rabbits went out when theirmother left to gather blackberries, butPeter ran away to Mr. McGregor’s garden where he was chased byMr. McGregor who was shouting ‘stop thief!’. Peter was badly frightenedand rushed all over the garden not knowing how to get out. Finally hemanaged to escape, and he did not stop running till he got home and felldown on the floor, shut his eyes, and went to sleep.

Hismother came back andwonderedwhat Peter had donewith his clothes.She put him to bed, while his sisters had bread, milk, and blackberries forsupper.

I Examples of conventional (non-philosophical) questions1 What did their mother tell the kids before she went out?2 What did McGregor do when he saw Peter? Describe completely.3 Do you always listen to your mom? Explain why or why not.4 Do you know any other similar story like this? Describe it.5 What do you do when you see an animal in trouble?6What are different wayswe can keep out harmful animals fromfields and

gardens?

II Examples of philosophical questions1 Is Mr. McGregor good or bad?2 Are you necessarily bad if you get into mischief?3 Is Peter bad?4Whatmakes you call a thing or a person ‘good’ or ‘bad’? Can something be

good and bad at the same time?5 Is Mr. McGregor dangerous to you? Are you dangerous to yourself

sometimes?6 Is Peter a child? How can you know for certain? Do you prefer to be Peter

or one of Peter’s sisters? Why?7 Do you think Peter goes to McGregor’s garden again?


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A PBLT approach to teaching ESL speaking, writing, and thinking skills