Critical thinking crucial to global success

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.