05/10/13 Thinking skills for CLIL | Onestopenglish

Subscribe now: Indiv idual|

Institution|
Register for free|
Sign in

Number one for English language teachers

Thinking skills for CLIL

By Jean Brewster

T y pe: Article, Reference material, Teaching notes

In the first of a new series of study skills for CLIL, Jean Brewster takes the v ery topical subject of thinking
skills and looks at how CLIL teaching embraces many of the thinking skills principles and how this benefits
the learner.

Introduction | Teaching thinking skills | Conclusion

Introduction
In CLIL lessons the cognitiv e challenges of language learning are great; much of the content lies outside
children's direct ex perience and is often more abstract. For ex ample, in science lessons learners may
struggle to describe and compare the properties of materials, may find it impossible to hy pothesize about
why particular materials are used for particular purposes. They may be able to write up the procedural
part of a report after testing materials but not how to write conclusions. By being taught specific thinking
skills and the associated language, learners are better equipped to deal with the complex academic and
cognitiv e demands of learning school subjects in a foreign language.

Basic Interpersonal Communicative Skills (BICS) and Cognitive

Academic Language Proficiency (CALP)
In 1 97 9 the Canadian educator, Jim Cummins, made a useful distinction between BICS, the skills of
listening, speaking, reading and writing for so-called social or conversational purposes and CALP, linked
to more academic, cognitiv ely challenging tasks in subject lessons. The work of Biber (1 986) and Corson
(1 995) prov ided ev idence of the linguistic reality in the distinction between BICS and CALP. This original
distinction, refined ov er time in response to some criticisms, has continued to prov ide useful insights for
many CLIL teachers.

Typical language and thinking in tasks

If learners are ex perimenting with different colour combinations in an art class, try ing out magnets in the
science class or inv estigating the lines of sy mmetry of 2D shapes in maths lessons, what kinds of skill, aside
from basic language skills, will they need to draw on or dev elop? Learners may be encouraged

to predict what will happen,

to carry out simple inv estigations or ex periments,
to describe and record what they observ e,
to find patterns, notice similarities and differences,
to compare results, to draw conclusions and so on.

If we take the ex ample of predicting, learners may know the use of w ill/ going to for an easy , ev ery day
situation. Howev er, with little knowledge of the concept of magnetism, for ex ample, learners may not be
able to think v ery clearly about their intended meaning and may not know the subject-specific words of
attract or repel. Some children find it difficult enough to draw on these more academic kinds of interaction
in their first language, nev er mind a foreign language. As John Clegg wrote in an earlier article: The truth is
that schools don't often teach these skills explicitly. Instead, teachers hope that their learners w ill pick
them up.

www.onestopenglish.com/clil/methodology/study-skills-for-clil/thinking-skills-for-clil/501197.article 1/5
05/10/13 Thinking skills for CLIL | Onestopenglish

The first section of this article will refer briefly to the renewed interest in teaching thinking skills, often
based on modern re-conceptions of the traditional tax onomy of thinking skills published by Benjamin
Bloom in 1 956. This categorization and ordering of thinking skills inv olv es a discussion of how the so-
called low er-order thinking skills should ideally lead onto the teaching of higher order thinking skills. The
nex t section on process skills outlines those skills ty pically required in different stages of concept
dev elopment in subject lessons. Finally , there will be a brief ex ample of how the use of graphic organizers
to record and interpret information links thinking skills to process skills and language skills.

Teaching thinking skills

Today there is international recognition that education is more than just learning knowledge and thinking,
it also inv olv es learners' feelings, beliefs and the cultural env ironment of the classroom. Nev ertheless, the
importance of teaching thinking and creativ ity is an important element in modern education. Benjamin
Bloom was the first to dev elop a highly popularized hierarchy of six thinking skills placed on a continuum
from lower to higher order skills: knowledge, comprehension, application, analy sis, sy nthesis and
ev aluation. According to this sy stem, low er order skills included recalling knowledge to identify , label,
name or describe things. Higher order skills called on the application, analy sis or sy nthesis of knowledge,
needed when learners use new information or a concept in a new situation, break information or concepts
into parts to understand it more fully , or put ideas together to form something new. Bloom's structure was
a useful starting point and triggered many applications to school activ ities and curricula.

Bloom's revised taxonomy of thinking skills

In 2001 a former student of Bloom, Lorin Anderson, published a rev ised classification of thinking skills
which is actually rather similar to the original but focuses more on v erbs than nouns and renames some of
the lev els.

Fig. 1 Bloom's Revised Taxonomy

Higher order thinking skills

Creating making, designing, constructing, planning, producing, inv enting,
Ev aluating checking, hy pothesizing, ex perimenting, judging, testing, monitoring,
Analy zing comparing, organizing, outlining, finding, structuring, integrating
Apply ing implementing, carry ing out, using
Understanding comparing, ex plaining, classify ing, ex emplify ing, summarizing
Remembering recognizing, listing, describing, identify ing, retriev ing, naming, finding, defining
Lower order thinking skills

We can see that these lev els hav e an intuitiv e appeal to many teachers; howev er it can also be difficult to
implement some of these ideas. For ex ample, comparing falls both under analyzing and understanding,
which is confusing. Here analy zing the lev el of comparison depends on contex t, for ex ample: how complex
is the concept or knowledge being compared?

Linking thinking and language

The figure below is an ex ample of how publications on thinking skills began to start linking some common
thinking and process skills with the ty pical language required. For reasons of space, only three lev els are
ex emplified.

Fig. 3 Typical thinking and language skills

Thinking skill Possible language

Rem em bering/ Recall Questions using w ho, w hat, w here, w hen, w hich how , how
much?
recognizing, listing, describing,
identify ing, retriev ing, naming, T asks using describe, choose, define, find, label, colour, match,
finding, defining underline key vocabulary in different colours (e.g. parts of a system
and functions)

Language:
www.onestopenglish.com/clil/methodology/study-skills-for-clil/thinking-skills-for-clil/501197.article 2/5
05/10/13 Thinking skills for CLIL | Onestopenglish

That's a …(because it has …and … )

This is a … and this is w hat it does.
This has…
This is a kind of …. w hich/that …
A … is a kind of… w hich/that …
This goes w ith this.

Understanding/ Interpreting Questions using is this the same as…? What's the difference
betw een…? Which part doesn't fit or match the others? Why?
comparing, ex plaining,
ex emplify ing, T asks using classify, explain, show w hat w ould happen if … give
an example, show in a graph or table, use a V enn diagram or
classify ing, understanding cause chart to show …
and effect, generalizing,
summarizing, Language:
This is ..( a kind of…) but that one isn't (because…)
This has ( a type of…)but that one doesn't/hasn't (because…).
These are all types of …because
This belongs/ goes here because…
If w e do this then…
This leads to..
This causes …

Apply ing to new situations Questions using w hat w ould happen if..? What w ould result in …?
How much change is there if you …?
Planning, implementing, carry ing
out, drawing conclusions, reporting T asks using Explain w hat w ould happen if…, Show the results of…,
back
Using investigations and experimental inquiry e.g. surveys, w eb
quests etc. choosing how to record and represent information

Language:

A v ariety of language functions for planning, hy pothesizing, asking

questions, reporting, drawing conclusions e.g.

What shall w e try/ do first?

if w e try this then ...that could be…
First w e thought about… then w e…This must be .. because…
It can't be …because…

Marzano's taxonomy of skills in education

In 2000 Marzano published a different way of looking at skills. His classification is based on the
Know ledge Domain and three sy stems - the Cognitive, the Selfand the Metacognitive. The self sy stem
inv olv es a learner's attitudes, beliefs and feelings that determine his/her motiv ation. The metacognitiv e
sy stem relates to learning to learn: it helps the learner to set goals, make decisions about and monitor
which information is necessary and which cognitiv e processes are the best fit for the task in hand.

Fig. 2 Marzano's New Educational Taxonomy

KNOWLEDGE DOMAIN

Inform ation Mental procedures Phy sical procedures

www.onestopenglish.com/clil/methodology/study-skills-for-clil/thinking-skills-for-clil/501197.article 3/5
05/10/13 Thinking skills for CLIL | Onestopenglish

COGNIT IVE SY ST EM
Knowledge Com prehension
retriev al Analy sis Knowledge use

Recall: Matching, classifying, error analysis, Decision-making,

Recalling Synthesis:identify ing generalizing and specifiying: by engaging problem-solving,
information, what is important to in these cognitiv e processes learners use experimental inquiry,
facts, remember. what they learn to create insights and investigations. These
sequences inv ent way s of using learned information in are also especially useful
and Representation: new situations. in project-ty pe work.
processes. putting this
information into
categories.

Graphic organizers
encourage this
process.

The know ledge domain, consists of three categories of knowledge: information, mental procedures and
phy sical procedures. A child at primary lev el may learn about quadrilaterals and the key v ocabulary and
characteristics to describe them. This is the w hat of knowledge. She will also learn how to draw different
kinds of quadrilateral (phy sical procedures) and how to compare or classify them (mental procedures).
The cognitiv e sy stem is made up of four components:

knowledge retriev al,

comprehension,
analy sis, and
knowledge use.

Marzano's cognitiv e sy stem is similar to the six lev els of Bloom and Anderson. In knowledge retriev al (cf.
Remembering and Understanding) the child needs to be able to identify and put a name to new
information; for ex ample, the topic might be mammals and the names of different ty pes of big cat, such as
tiger, lion, cheetah and so on. Facts about mammals will inv olv e statements and generalizations using the
simple present tense, such as:

mammals have a covering of fur, hair, or skin,

mammals give birth to live young,
mammals are w arm -blooded,
mammals feed their young w ith milk from the mother,
tigers have stripes but cheetahs and leopards have spots, etc.
tigers can sw im

These language functions can be linked to all four basic language skills using activ ities based on oracy
(speaking and listening) and literacy tasks (reading and writing). For ex ample, learners can listen to
descriptions of animals and choose the correct picture, use a tick chart to listen to comparisons of big cats
and then use this as a speaking frame to produce simple sentences. Learners might read simple
descriptions of big cats and transfer key information onto a chart, then use this chart to w rite simple
sentences. This basic knowledge can be ex tended to compare and classify ty pes of big cat in different way s
according to features such as habitat, characteristics, appearance etc.

Under comprehension the learners sort out which information is important or relev ant for a task and
ignore other information. Graphic organizers such as charts, grids, V enn diagrams and flow charts are
especially important here for learners as they organize information in a way that reduces the language
load. Thus they help the learner to focus on the key language and thinking required.

In analysis the learners need to draw on more complex thinking processes - matching, classify ing,
generalizing and specify ing - in order to create and inv ent new insights or new way s of using learned
information. These skills are likely to be highlighted when carry ing out inv estigations. Know ledge use is
the highest form of thinking process under Marzano's sy stem and is used particularly in the creation of
inv estigations, projects and web quests, where application and the creation of new ideas are particularly
useful.

www.onestopenglish.com/clil/methodology/study-skills-for-clil/thinking-skills-for-clil/501197.article 4/5
05/10/13 Thinking skills for CLIL | Onestopenglish

Conclusion
These attempts to analy ze and classify thinking processes mov e from a foundation of simpler, lower order
skills to more complex higher order skills. Howev er, there is still no consensus about the ex act number of
skills or lev els, the interaction between them nor is it easy to analy se the lev el of difficulty of a particular
task or the precise thinking skills required. All we can do for now is draw on insights that hav e been made
and see which ones seem to fit in with our v iews. The nex t article focuses on process skills and data-
handling, referring particularly to the use of graphic organizers to record and interpret data. The
importance and benefits of graphic organizers for both learners and teachers will be described and how
teachers can plan for them. Different ty pes of organizer will be outlined and one ty pe called gly phs will be
illustrated in some detail.

September 2009

References
Anderson, L.W. and D. Krathw ohl (eds.) (2001 ). A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching and Assessing: a
Revision of Bloom's Educational Objectives.Longman. New Y ork.

Biber, D. (1 986). 'Spoken and w ritten textual dimensions in English: Resolving the contradictory
findings.' Language 62, 384-41 4.

Corson, D. (1 995). Using English w ords. New Y ork: Kluwer.

Cummins, J. (1 97 9). 'Cognitive/academic language proficiency, linguistic interdependence, the optimum

age question and some other matters.' Working Papers on Bilingualism. 1 9, 1 21 -1 29.

Harlen, W. And A. Qualter, (2007 ). The Teaching of Science in Primary Schools.3 r d edn. Abingdon, Ox on:
Routledge.

Marzano, R. J. (2000). Designing a new taxonomy of educational objectives. Thousand Oaks, CA.: Corwin
Press.

Thinking Skills Methodology CLIL BIC CALP Skills Study skills Graphic organizers
Credits:
Share
Like 14

Tw eet 4

0
Share

Powered by Webstructure.NET

www.onestopenglish.com/clil/methodology/study-skills-for-clil/thinking-skills-for-clil/501197.article 5/5