Developing Critical Thinking Skills in The East and South-East Asian Regions

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概要

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• This paper will test a multilevel cultural framework for conducting needs analysis related to the development of certain so-called higher-level thinking skills, or critical thinking skills, in university level service English programs in the East and South-East Asian regions. These thinking skills are associated with the modern intellectual and academic traditions of the West and their emphasis on fostering independent thought among individuals. The framework that is tested in this study is the four dimensions of culture framework that was developed heuristically by Flowerdew and Miller (1995) as a result of an ethnographic research project conducted in an English medium tertiary education institution in Hong Kong; The testing consists of setting this Hong Kong generated framework against data derived from secondary sources which deal with different aspects of the four dimensions of culture in Japan.The author will argue that Flowerdew and Miller's assumption that ethnic culture is both unitary and largely inseparable from academic culture may not be entirely true in the case of Japan. Two important signs of this cultural variegation in Japan are the relative lack of uniformity in the academic cultures of Japanese middle and high schools and an interesting contrast in Japanese responses to two equally important western academic traditions, one concerned with mathematics and the physical sciences, the other concerned with the social sciences and the humanities. The implications of these findings for syllabus design are discussed in the context of an actual thinking skills component incorporated in a pre-MBA English course run at the International University of Japan. Institutions with similar educational needs in other parts of East and South-East Asia are encouraged to test this framework and adapt it to their own needs.

• 国際大学の論文

著者

• Smith Richard

  International Management Faculty International University Of Japan

• Smith Richard

  International Univeristy Of Japan

関連論文

• From analysis of error in learner writing to customized EAP instructional materials
• Developing Critical Thinking Skills in The East and South-East Asian Regions
• Helping our ESP students to get access to the productive vocabulary they need
• The relationship between lexical richness and the higher levels of English proficiency
• Lexical richness and success in a standardized academic English writing test

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