Los secretos de la Inteligencia Emocional Una Inteligencia Emocional super-desarrollada

Study 3 uses Blank‘s Levels of Questioning as an intervention with CALD students in mainstream TAFE classrooms. Specifically, the intervention is used to see if second language learners in mainstream classrooms respond to Blank‘s (2002) dialogue strategies.

48 Summary of the three studies

In summary, the first part of the research asked CALD students how they perceived themselves as problem-solvers in an Australia TAFE educational setting; the second part of the research asked TAFE teachers how they perceived CALD students as problem- solvers in an Australian TAFE Diploma level course, as well as the students ability to handle the levels of Blank‘s dialogue strategies. The third part was to introduce the TAFE teachers to Blank‘s (2002) strategies and to see if using these strategies enhanced the learning of CALD students.

How socio-cultural theory informs the current studies

In the process of scaffolding students learning as articulated by Vygotsky(1978) through the use of Blank and Franklin‘s (1978) Levels of Questioning, it was anticipated that CALD students would be able to develop a lexicon of words and concepts that enhanced their learning. In the process of developing this knowledge, it is posited that students are able to become better mediators of their own learning, rather than being reliant on external mediation by teachers. This shift in mediation should allow CALD students to focus more on the meaning of instruction and concepts presented in mainstream classes. A consequence of this would then be that students are not burdened by a cognitive load that is weighted down by translating words before any other cognitive processing of classroom activity can take place (Hester & Garavan, 2005).

Blank and White (1999) discussed the difference between classroom discourse and that discourse that takes place between two people. Classroom discourse uses specific language associated with the academic content. Lundberg (2002) has identified that language is used in different types of communication; for example, there are differences between social conversation and academic discourse. Clark and Flores (2007) pointed out that when learning in a new culture the individual must learn the knowledge that is present in that new culture and integrate that with existing knowledge. The CALD student is faced with interpreting a second language, but also has to become aware of how to communicate in the language of a culturally different classroom. The adult mainstream classroom is likely to be a specialist area that has a specialist language. So, the culture of the specialist area speaks to the listener, but in the language of the specialist area. The spoken language is English, but the words and concepts are part of the culture of the specialisation (Hatano

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& Wertsch, 2001). The student has to work out the meta-linguistics of the specialist area to be able to communicate in the specialisation.

Blank‘s (2002) four levels of questions (1 – Matching experience, 2 –

Classification, 3 – Reorganisation, 4 – Abstraction and inference) provide a means of operationalizing the socio-cultural research paradigm and could provide an effective means by which the potential of CALD students to decode abstract questions could improve. This study focused on examining CALD students‘ potential to develop abstract language from a socio-cultural context.

Blank and White (1999) have identified that a group conversation is complex because the listener has to decode meaning without the ability to interpret and have the interpretations checked, as would occur in a one-to-one conversation. The teacher is communicating to a large number of listeners who might interpret the utterances in different ways to those intended by the teacher. Blank and White indicated that teachers often ask questions that assume knowledge of the activity or topic. If abstract questions are asked of students who are not aware of specialist meanings of words or concepts, then it is likely the students will not be able to engage in learning. The students are not in a position to make interpretations about information because they are not decoding the text. The use of Blank‘s level 2 questions (classification) could provide a platform for the development of declarative knowledge, that is, knowledge that is publicly accepted, about the area of study (Blank & White, 1999). The classification of words and concepts provides the CALD learner with the opportunity to reduce working memory load related to interpreting words and provides the CALD student with the chance to focus on classroom tasks. Critically, the decoding of words and concepts allows the student to begin to develop higher order thinking about a topic. Until knowledge is reorganised (level 3) into long- term memory, then the development of abstract and inferential thinking (level 4) is not likely to take place (Blank, Rose, & Berlin, 1978). As Efklies (2008) has noted, the development of declarative knowledge is argued to be integral to the development of metacognition. The CALD student needs to integrate existing declarative knowledge in long-term memory together with new declarative knowledge to be able to develop abstract thinking in a new cultural setting. Focusing on level 2 and level 3 questions will support development of the reorganisation of declarative knowledge in long-term memory, providing a foundation for abstract thought.

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The previous chapter provided an overview of the three linked studies and a theoretical rationale for the approach. The next chapter provides the methodology and findings from Study 1: CALD students‘ perceptions of themselves as learners and problem-solvers; and Study 2: TAFE teachers‘ perceptions of their CALD students as learners and problems-solvers. These two studies then informed an intervention, Study 3. Study 3 will be considered in chapter 5.

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