The Teaching of Critical Thinking Skills

The teaching of critical thinking skills

Opinion and Editorial – August 14, 2007 The Jakarta Post

Hanung Triyoko, Melbourne

Indonesian students need to make some essential adaptations in order to succeed academically in Australian universities. These adaptations are not just about English proficiency but differences in academic culture.

There are more issues to address about our study in Australia universities beside our continuous effort to upgrade our English to a stage where we may be said to be competent users of English for academic purposes.

Australian universities, as part of the Anglo-Saxon university system, demand students, among other things, be able to exercise critical thinking, which is believed to be the most distinctive feature of the differences between the non-Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Saxon universities.

Universities in Australia have made critical thinking a focus in various bridging programs especially provided for international students. While it is expected that the explicit teaching of critical thinking and the acknowledging of our previous learning experiences may optimally upgrade Indonesian students’ study skills, it may also make some of us feel inferior.

Many of us may feel reluctant to actively get involved in discussions and debates not because we are afraid of using English but because we are not accustomed to the culture of discussion and debate in Australian universities. The fact that we are more familiar with memorizing tasks than the analyzing ones in our past studies can hinder inquiry and advocacy tasks in good discussions and debates.

We value group orientation more than the individual orientation and thus group harmony is more valuable than individual progress. Hence, it seems hard to us to adopt the different learning styles where individual knowledge development, not the group’s accumulation of knowledge, is emphasized.

For example, in Indonesia we are encouraged to receive as much information as we can from our teachers and store that in our mind as evidence of truth because we know that our teacher would not mislead us in seeking knowledge. Meanwhile, in Australia, students are expected to develop critical thinking by questioning and analyzing all the information they get from all sources including those from teachers.

Recently there is an increasing demand in universities in Australia to explicitly require students to work out their critical thinking in the assignment by putting it as an element of the grading. Critical thinking has been a compulsory subject in most universities’ bridging programs.

Australian universities provide bridging problems to ensure that we are aware of the different academic expectations and that we in certain degree have been exposed to these different practices before we really engage in our study.

A bridging program like the Introductory Academic Program (IAP), organized by many international universities in Australia, is also designed to facilitate us to develop various study skills necessary for our adaptations, including critical thinking skills.

It has been general knowledge for academics in Australia that due to the different practices of education in Indonesia, Indonesian students are treated as students who lack critical thinking skills and therefore need special training in it.

There are too many things to cover about critical thinking in the relatively short period of the IAP. To be able to apply critical thinking skills, we are required to exercise skills related to questioning, analyzing, debating, putting arguments, making issues, an so on, which are all dependent on our competency in English.

Indonesian students joining the IAP cannot be said to have the same level of English and if we do, the IAP is inclusive for the non-native students that make the IAP classes different to real classes in Australian universities. In IAP we may not be able to really experience real class situations. We may still find lots of surprises in the practices of critical thinking in real class situations.

We may find our exposure to critical thinking in IAP beneficial when we are aware that critical thinking is similar to computer skills and also driving skills in that the maximum benefit of these skills depends on certain proper situations.

We can perhaps avoid feeling inferior if we are able to negotiate with ourselves what cultural practices of the universities we should adopt. In addition, through comparing learning practices in Australia and Indonesia we may think that critical thinking is one technique among many ways of good science and see that the acquisition of critical thinking is necessary to gain academic success in Australian universities without feeling that our educational backgrounds are deficient.

Teaching critical thinking in the bridging programs is not an easy task because it may place students exercising different learning styles in a situation where we feel inferior.

However, weighing the benefits and the drawbacks of teaching critical thinking to Indonesian students as mentioned above, there should be more critical thinking practices introduced to our education system at any level so that there will be more Indonesian students who are ready to study in English speaking countries.

The writer is a lecturer at STAIN Salatiga and is now studying in the Master’s Program of Educational Leadership and Management at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia.

Readers’ comments

From Rey Edi

Hello Sir

I am surprised that obviously almost nothing has changed since 1981, when I studied Bahasa at Satya Wacana in Salatiga . I remeber very well how difficult if not impossible it was for me as a Westerner to really openly discuss topics. You are absolutely right. If Indonesian students want to be sucessful at overseas universities, they should be taught the skill of debate and how to defeend their opinion.

From Ibrahim Isa Alias Bramijn

You have made an inmportant remark.

Critical thinking for Indonesian students, are especially of utmost inmportant on the question of modern Indonesian history.

For more than 3 decades , during the entire period of the Orba, students were made to believe of the lies and manipulation by the regime of Indonesian modern history, as the only truth.

Students followed blindly the Orba scholars interpretation about  the  ‘bad governance’  during  the Sukarno era, and of the ‘excellent  economic policy’  of the the Orba, etc.

Critical thinking should be practiced by  Indonesian students, as well as (especially) by the professors and  lecturers themselves.

Sincerely yours,

Ibrahim Isa

14 August 2007

We have the right to change English

We have the right to change English

Hanung Triyoko , Salatiga | Sat, 05/31/2008 12:08 PM | Opinion

The upcoming Asia TEFL Conference in Bali is too important to overlook.
It will be held from Aug. 1-3, 2008, and this year’s theme is Globalizing Asia: The Role of ELT.
What intrigues me most is to what extent this conference will contribute to Indonesian non-native English teachers’ efforts to implement successful English language teaching in classrooms across the country.
Will the conference inspire us to apply new approaches and methodologies based on the belief that English evolves as it spreads, and so there is no more “English” but rather many localized “Englishes”? Are we going to follow up the conference with agreement on ways to help students become proficient in Indonesian English?
For many here, the relation between language and identity is summed up in the familiar Javanese adage, Ajining diri ono ing kedaling lathi (The words you speak determine who you are). Simply put, it’s the essence of the relationship between language and identity.
This conference will perhaps prompt us to seek answers to why very few people are convinced ELT (English Language Teaching) in Indonesia is successful. Many English teachers here base their lessons around strict, unbending ideals of the language, and expect students to conform to these ideals. This can create, whether intentionally or not, a hostile atmosphere that at its heart, threatens the students’ Indonesian identity.
For instance, how many Indonesian English teachers find it funny when students speak English with a marked accent? I’d say far too many. Anybody would be discouraged from speaking a foreign language if all it brings is ridicule and mockery.
As English teachers, the language forms an inextricable part of our social and personal lives, but the extent to which it identifies us varies. It depends on our day-to-day experiences with English and our understanding of the role of the language in our future. A similar model may be applied to our students. Do not expect all of them to want to know the intricacies of English grammar, because not all of them will grow up wanting to be English teachers.
Many teachers try to mold their students into competent English speakers with an ability approaching native English speakers. Some still teach this way, but others are beginning to think critically in light of the different circumstances students now face, and because the use of English in our society has now reached a level that earlier teachers could never have anticipated.
How many English learners in Indonesia face situations where the use of their mother tongue is restricted? The vast majority, one would think. Most students use English when speaking to their teachers or peers, or when reading English textbooks.
And yet they should be allowed the option of reverting to their native language if it’s too difficult for them to convey their message in English, assuming the meaning is not lost in the switch.
And they should be able to turn to a dictionary or friends or teachers or other sources whenever they find it too difficult to understand written English passages.
The need to establish and recognize a local English — Indonesian English or Indoglish — is not without basis. Malaysian English and Singaporean English (Singlish) are already taken for granted, and the debate on whether certain nations or communities can claim ownership of their local version of English is considered moot because of the seemingly unstoppable rise of localized English worldwide.
However, the realization of this dream should start with our willingness to stop prioritizing the “correctness” of pronunciations and accents even when the message remains intelligible and the meaning is not lost.
We should also stop limiting students’ vocabularies to what is published in ELT books, as long as words that make up the new lexicon are widely accepted by the students. Someday, for instance, when the time is right, we may even see abbreviations such as “OIC” for “Oh, I see” in textbooks.
Brutt-Griffler (1998, p. 387) defines non-native English teachers as “non-native speakers” with the “authority” to spread as well as to change English. However this authority to change the language does not mean we can do so whimsically.
It should be used to enable us to express ourselves more clearly when talking to others about our cultures and beliefs. English colloquialisms mean little from an Asian perspective, but the ability to construct our own colloquialisms opens up whole new opportunities for us.
Take for instance the English phrases “Excuse me” and “I am sorry”, which in Bahasa Indonesia both translate as maaf. To native English speakers, there is a world of difference between the two expressions, but for non-native speakers there is a distinct advantage in being able to use one expression to mean two different things.
Many native English speakers feel their language is sufficient for all situations, and hence don’t see the benefits of switching to a localized vernacular in cases like this.
Most of us would agree there are major differences between the English our students are speaking and the English we as teachers speak. However, the differences are subtle, and it’s not that easy to pinpoint any concrete examples of this gap.
This can happen because very often we regard what our students write or say as mistakes or a failure to properly grasp the grammar. We judge them as such because we’ve been trained to compare them to accepted forms which we believe will never change.
Alternatively, we could consider these mistakes part of an emerging localized version of English, a language molded and influenced by the students and their understanding of a foreign language. We should welcome these differences with the hope that our students will eventually speak a similar English to us. The problem is we seldom see these differences for what they really are: the seeds of our very own localized English.

The writer is a lecturer at STAIN Salatiga and a student in the Master’s Program of Educational Leadership and Management, La Trobe University, Melbourne. He can be reached at hanungina@gmail.com

New Teaching Style Needed

Opinion and Editorial – November 10, 2007 The Jakarta Post

Hanung Triyoko, Melbourne
[The writer is a lecturer at STAIN Salatiga and a student in the Master’s Program of Educational Leadership and Management, La Trobe University, Melbourne. He can be reached at
hanungina@gmail.com]

New teaching style needed

Many teachers and parents know children nowadays listen more to their iPods than to their words. Students have huge numbers of sources of information in this era of information technology. Teachers and parents are challenged by the attractiveness of computer-assisted information resources and their being more affordable for wider communities.
As a consequence, it is becoming harder and harder for the traditional approach of teaching to control student behavior since students share other values offered by the multimedia.
Take an example; teachers may need more than just words to ensure students read the recommended books for the following lessons. Students may spend most of their time after school utilizing advanced technology like the internet and cyber-gaming, and think that books are just out of character.
It does not mean that teachers can no longer refer to books as lesson materials, but merely depending on books in today’s classroom is like going out for dinner in a Padang restaurant with no intention of spending more money. We may satisfy our hunger but may not satisfy our appetite despite the variety of food available.
It is wiser to understand than to control students’ behavior. Teachers need to apply new methods of assessment that allow students to choose what they want to learn and to show in their own ways the results of their learning. Teachers also need to collaborate more with parents and other stakeholders in assuring the achievement of individual student learning objectives.
Tests as the traditional way of student assessments are limited in their capacity to cover all domains of students’ abilities. Tests generally measure the students’ cognitive ability, whereas the psychomotoric as well as the affective abilities remain unseen. The main purposes of assessments are to report, to guide and to diagnose student learning.
Therefore, considerations of sources of learning and preferred styles of learning are also very important in choosing appropriate kinds of assessments for students. All the high-tech stuff that students today are engaged with every day influences the development of their three skill domain sand assessing their cognitive skill only is unfair.
In his thesis “Continuous Assessment in Bhutan: Science Teachers’ Perspective”, Chewang (1999) defines continuous assessment, or authentic assessment, or alternative assessment, as a special method of assessment by which teachers at regular intervals assess students over the whole course.
Thus, things to assess can be diaries, videos, power point presentations, audio recordings, simulations of real-life problems and even parents’ notes and commentaries.
The application of this new method of assessment allows students to develop positive feelings of achievement by showing others what they can do rather than what they do not know. Very few students perform well in all subjects they are studying but all students deserve appreciation for what they are good at.
Imagine what opportunities this continuous assessment provides for students who are only average at many of their courses, but skillful in others.
Besides, continuous assessment enables teachers to diagnose the relevance of their curriculum and lesson materials to students’ life outside school. Students are also in control of what they are going to learn.
Students are expected to assess themselves in all stages prior to their final projects using all possible data like notations in group meetings, footage, photos and portfolios to see their progress toward the objective of their studies.
Parents and other students may take part in this process through parent and peer assessments. Teachers make themselves available for giving quality feedback to highlight each student’s strengths and weaknesses on continuous scheduled assessment days.
Students should clarify all commentaries given by teachers to remedy all their weaknesses and most importantly to spell out any misunderstanding of value judgment. Students are permitted to defend their own criteria of accomplishments based on their personal traits and background, and teachers should place more value on students’ critical thinking and move beyond the one-right-answer model.
Continuous assessment gives teachers more responsibilities in students’ learning progress and they may have to spend much more time preparing and doing the assessments.
Applying consistently the continuous assessment in one particular subject will eventually lead to students’ improving in other subjects as well. Indeed, all records of students’ performances may be retrieved for future use such as when students need to convince interviewers for job vacancies of their computer and interpersonal communication skills, as well as foreign language mastery.
No matter how complicated and problematical this continuous assessment may sound in the context of our education system, consensus should be made by educational leaders to give the continuous assessment a go.