Can we teach our students how to think in a foreign languag1

Can We Teach Our Students How to Think in a Foreign Language?

Ali Mansouri Writer, Researcher, Consultant Google+ Thinking is an asset and a privilege for human beings. Without thinking, people are reduced to animals, which cannot be accepted in any normal human society. It is a natural requirement then Page 1 of 3

to ask teachers to create the learning environment and conditions for the students to acquire, and to learn, how to think in their native language or in the foreign language. Thinking in the foreign language is, therefore, an essential skill which cannot be done away with or ignored in any effective program or methodology for teaching a target language. It is a grave misconception to look at learning a foreign language as a matter of learning mechanical skills like walking or swimming. To learn a foreign language requires a great deal more than learning mechanical skills or the simple skills or acquiring information about the language in its various aspects of grammar, vocabulary, listening, speaking, reading and writing. This has always been clear to the language specialists, educators and the majority of language teachers though it is not clear to many senior managers who, mistakenly, think that learning a foreign language is just a matter of teaching simple mechanical skills which anyone knowing the language can do.

Thinking in a language, be it the native or the target language, is a constant and intimate process.

This means the speakers have assimilated and acquired the language to such an extent that it has become part of them. They no longer translate from their native language into the foreign language. They thus speak and understand the foreign language faster and more smoothly. They do not need to rely entirely on their native language when they read, write, speak or listen to the target language. To resort to the native language when using the foreign language reduces the speed of communication and makes it more difficult and less fluent. This is one of the reasons why so many students are unable to achieve an acceptable level of fluency in the foreign language even though they study it for many, many years.

Learning how to think in a language is then an important skill that can be taught and learned. But this requires an encouraging environment and a lot of practice. It requires a small size classroom, effective teaching strategies, motivated students and motivated teachers. It also requires a healthy work culture that encourages all sorts of useful thinking and eliminates fear and repression from the lives of the students and teachers. Teachers would tell you that they cannot teach their students how to think in a foreign language as they fear to lose their jobs if something goes wrong!

Extensive reading in the foreign language is another important requirement for the teaching and learning of the thinking skills. It makes the students get deeper into how the native speakers of the language think and go about their day to day routines and communications. This makes them get a lot closer to the “mindset” of the speakers of the target language and stop looking into the mirror of their first language when they communicate with these speakers.

Teachers are practical people and they always know what is “teachable” and what is “unteachable” in the classroom. For most, if not all, of them teaching students how to think in a foreign language is a great challenge and a formidable task. If they are required by the teaching program or educational authorities to teach the “thinking skills”, they will try to do it even if they know that it involves a lot of waste of time and money. They simply do not want to lose their jobs nor do they want to look they are incapable of doing their job as teachers. What is not clear to the majority of them is the strong interconnection between the teaching of the “thinking skills’ and their own culture and the culture of the students. If their culture or the students’ culture does not foster “thinking” as an essential part of life and education, then these teachers are, by nature and upbringing, incapable of teaching their students how to think in the foreign language and the Page 2 of 3

students themselves are incapable of learning how to do it. They even do not understand why anyone wants them to think in the foreign language! They have never been brought up at home or in school or a university to think for themselves or even to have a choice! One day, I was teaching in a college and I used to put a writing question for students to write on ONE of two topics (A) and (B), which is very normal in many foreign language situations. The students would write on both topics, not one! After the exam, they would ask me to make the choice myself. At first, I thought it was a matter of carelessness or misunderstanding on the part of the students because the rubric is very clear in wording. When I asked them about the reason, they explained the difficulty of making a choice because they were not used to making a choice in life. Everything is dictated to them! What a disaster!

I have had the privilege of teaching English as a Foreign Language in many situations and in many countries around the world. I have found it a lot easier to teach students how to think in English when their culture and their system of life foster choice, freedom and thinking. When the system of life is oppressive and does not give choice nor encourages thinking, teaching students to think in the foreign language is a waste of time and money.

It is a very sad fact of life in many countries around the world that people are brought up or even “instructed” not to think for themselves. Many governments, local officials and senior managers of all sorts and ranks would tell you, “We do not want you to think. We will think for you!”

How disgusting! It is the more disgusting when people with this rotten mentality creep up into very influential positions in the educational system and in colleges and universities. You meet a corrupt Dean of a college or a corrupt Vice Chancellor or a corrupt Assistant Vice Chancellor of a university who would, in a vulgar and uncivilized language, tell you this to your face in official meetings! There is no choice for you: Either you do things exactly as you are dictated to or you lose your job! There is no other option. The problem gets worse when you know, and they know, that what they are telling you is completely wrong, futile and even against the official policies and regulations of the higher education system. “To be or not to be a sheep. That is the question”! They should be ashamed of themselves for their vulgarity and uncivilized behavior, and for treating their teachers and students like parrots and robots.

They want you to live like a sheep and die like one, but they want you to teach your students how to think in a foreign language! Mission Impossible.

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