Critical thinking crucial to global success

A Chaedar Alwasilah, Dean, Faculty of Language and Arts Education Indonesian University of Education (UPI), Bandung

On many different occasions Minister of National Education, Malik Fajar has blatantly described Indonesian as a boring school subject. The method of teaching is monotonous, the teaching material is old, and the teacher has no vision. The subject, accordingly, does not provide students with the required knowledge and skills to develop themselves.

Thus the language class is more a place for implementing curricular decisions than a forum of intellectual engagement. Many have suggested that the language education curriculum from elementary school up to college needs to be completely overhauled.

Upon careful examination of the literature on language teaching methodology, we could say that up to now its substance remains the same.

Various methods and techniques of language teaching are grounded in the following dichotomies: (1) theory versus practice, (2) product versus process, (3) behaviorism versus intellectual development and (4) prescriptive versus descriptive, to which textbook writers, curriculum developers, and educational evaluators turn for theoretical justification.

Appealing as all this esoteric jargon may sound, what the students are concerned with most of all is whether the teacher is empowering intellectually.

Given that the substance remains the same, it would be simplistic to equate updating language teaching methods with simply piloting alternative methods of teaching or utilizing new technology.

It is the teacher, not the technology, that matters most. The essence of updating language teaching is, as a matter of fact, reconstructing the perspective of and having a new awareness of the essence of language education, especially on the part of teachers, college professors, and educational bureaucrats. Basic to innovation in language teaching is a complete understanding of language.

Language is the medium of other school subjects, a tool for thinking, and a tool of civilization in general. This suggests that professionally designed, language teaching will significantly improve the teaching of other subjects, enhance students' intellectual ability, and shape human civilization. Unfortunately, there is a tendency for non-language teachers to take this for granted.

Given all the discussion above, language education should be tailored to meet the current challenge, namely to develop literacy for global competition. Guidelines for developing such literacy will follow.

School teachers and college professors should be made aware of the importance of language proficiency for learning other subjects. There is a tendency among non-language teachers and professors to take language proficiency for granted. In evaluating students' assignments, they tend to focus on the substance and ignore the language, thus underestimating their linguistic accuracy. As a result, the students erroneously feel that their language proficiency is adequate. This attitude is prevalent especially among the teachers and college professors who lack writing skills.

Teachers tend to emulate their former teachers in the classroom. The tendency to emphasize the theory rather than practice of language has been a common phenomenon in language classes. And this practice seems to continue up to now. No wonder our school students lack language skills in particular and communication skills in general. It is high time to de-emphasize theory in favor of communication skills.

Another theory asserts that students will work as much as they are required to. Realizing that at present the final evaluation consists of a multiple choice type of test, they invest time and money attending a learning center simply to familiarize themselves with the test format. By so doing, they beat the system by means of memorizing patterns of tests. Such rote learning is not meaningful at all, and in the future this would be dysfunctional for developing critical thinking skills. Learning a language -- be it Indonesian or a foreign language -- is perceived by students as learning the theory of language, thus neglecting the functional side of language.

The existing national examination system has motivated students as well as teachers to concentrate on result rather than process. Actually, it is in the process that real learning takes place. Students should be exposed to the vastness of possibilities, and selecting the most feasible one is a feature of adroit thinking, which is essential for developing life skills. Life consists of multiple realities and to face them students need to be equipped with life skills. Translated into language arts programs, it is high time to drive a campaign for essay-type tests -- instead of objective type ones -- across the school curriculum.

It is time to convince language teachers and curriculum developers that language is a tool for thinking. Language education should be redesigned in the framework of thinking curriculum, which encompasses critical thinking skills, i.e., generating possibilities, analysis, comparison and contrast, inference and interpretation, evaluation and metacognition.

These six skills should be incorporated in the basic components of curriculum: objectives, learning experiences, teaching strategies, and evaluation. Through public speaking, debating, role playing, paper presenting, and essay writing, students are encouraged to develop critical thinking, be open- minded to accept criticism and differences. Through these activities not only will they exercise democracy in the classroom, but they also become good communicators.

Realizing that our students have been left behind compared to their counterparts in other Asian countries, we need to update ways of teaching both national and foreign languages at all level of education, from elementary to university. Language teaching at present should be aimed at meeting global challenges. In the final analysis, though, basic to success in global competition is the mastery of critical thinking.