Philosophy based language teaching or PBLT is one of the strategies to make learners learn the target language

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Philosophy-
based Language
Teaching
Sherilyn E. Nuesca

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Philosophy-based Language Teaching
(PBLT)
 a new approach to developing productive language
and thinking skills in students
 it involves posing philosophical questions and
engaging students in dialogues within a community of
enquiry context.

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Philosophical Approach to Language Teaching

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Introduction
 Reflections on our language teaching
experience over the years have provided us
with the interesting and even surprising
observation that whenever a philosophical
question was encountered or raised in our
English language classes, students would
automatically become ready and motivated to
actively participate in class discussions.

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PBLT
 Regular practice of philosophical enquiry led to
significant gains in students’ overall use of their
native language and that students who had
engaged in philosophy-based discussion made
more gains in reading than those who had not
(Murris 1992).

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PBLT
 Given the potentialities of philosophical discussion
and its power to enhance students’ communication
skills and thinking abilities and the evidence of gains
in students’ L1 development, we were attracted by
the idea of investigating the effect of introducing this
approach into the field of ESL/EFL learning and
teaching.

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Core of the PBLT
 is to engage students in discussions that revolve
around philosophical questions.
 to encourage students to plunge deeper into a
question or set of questions by discussing their
understanding of the concepts and reasoning for
such an understanding.

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PBLT Approaches
 Communicative Language Teaching
 Cooperative Language Learning
 Task-based Language Teaching
 Others
The point is to make students use language to learn it.

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Constructivism

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Underlying theory from Vygotsky’s
Social Interaction

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 He believes that thought and language are initially
separate but become interdependent during acts of
communication since meaning is created through
interaction. According to Vygotsky, it is language that
makes abstract thinking possible. From this
perspective, P B LT allows its users to use language
to imagine, manipulate, create new ideas, and share
those ideas with others

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 Language in P B LT is thus a mental tool that each
member of the social community (classroom) uses
to think and it is through language and
communication that abstract thinking becomes
possible.

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Significance of PBLT
 Language in P B LT is thus a mental tool that each
member of the social community (classroom) uses to
think and it is through language and communication
that abstract thinking becomes possible.
 TheimprovementofL2proficiency,especiallyproductive
skills,through philosophical discussion.

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Philosophy in PBLT
 meant to encourage ordinary students to think
critically and creatively about the world around them,
to delve deeper into subjects,
 and not blindly accept or memorize whatever is fed
into their minds. Philosophy, in this sense, as Cam
(1995) indicates, is the richest source and tool used
for the cultivation of higher thinking and enquiry into
the meaning of concepts that are central to our lives.

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Framework for PBLT
 1. The presentation of a stimulus (for example are
a dingoramultimedia ‘text’) to create an open-
ended issue, concept, or situation.
 2. Structured students’ cooperation to formulate
specific questions arising from the issue or
concept.
 3 The selection of a single question for the whole
group to discuss and explore through dialogue
aided by the facilitator.

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The use of philosophy provides two effective
tools to promote good thinking in the classroom:
 1 community of enquiry
 2 philosophical dialogue.

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Community of Enquiry
 students work together to generate and then
answer their own questions about the
philosophical issues contained in purposeful
written materials or a wide range of other
resources.

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Community of Enquiry
 Lipman (op.cit.) believes that in philosophical community
of enquiry, the following skills will be developed:
 cognitive skills, making distinctions, seeing connections,
identifying fallacies, finding analogies/disanalogies, seeing
broader perspectives, formulating and testing criteria,
sticking to the point, open mindedness, being willing to
offer and accept criticism, valuing reasonableness,
increasing tolerance against opposing ideas, drawing
inferences, etc.

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Philosophical Dialogue/Question
 according to Gregory (2008: 2–3), do not call for correct
answers: they refer to problems that cannot be solved by
calculation, consulting books, or by referring to one’s
own memories. To answer such questions, one has to
consider her or his own depth of thoughts. In contrast to
routine questions which call upon students to show their
knowledge of established facts, philosophical questions
require the student to think for her/himself and they
demand further investigations that invite reflection (Cam
1995)

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Procedures for PBLT Classroom
 P B LT classroom session begins with students reading a source text not
practised before. After reading, the students are invited individually or in
collaboration with their peers to come up with one or two philosophical
questions that the text has made them think or wonder about. These
questions, which are primarily constructed based on the concepts used in
the text, set the agenda for discussion. Each student then reads her/his
question to the whole class and the most interesting ones are selected by
the students themselves to be discussed.
 Students are allowed to code switch when necessary in order not to lose
their train of thoughts while discussing the issues. The role of the
instructor is mainly to facilitate student discussions by monitoring and
helping students to keep on track.

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 The role of the instructor is mainly to facilitate student
discussions by monitoring and helping students to
keep on track. During oral discussion, the instructor
takes some personal notes, writes down the main
points raised and the important words used, and
translates the L1 words used by students into L2. At
the end of the discussion and while students have a
break, the instructor divides the board into two halves
and outlines the main points discussed in one column
and puts the important words and those translated
into L2 in another.

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 Then students are asked to write individually an
essay on the main points using the materials on the
board if needed. These are checked by the instructor
out of class for each session and returned to the
students with feedback before the next class hour.
Each class session lasts for two hours with the
following tentative time allocation—reading the text
and producing questions: 15 minutes, oral discussion:
1 hour 15 minutes, and writing: 30 minutes.

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The Tale of Peter Rabbit (Summary)
The story is about a rabbit (Peter) who was living with his mother and
three sisters. One day, Peter’s mother was going out and warned her children
not to go into Mr. McGregor’s garden because their father had an accident
there.
The little rabbits went out when their mother left to gather blackberries,
but Peter ran away to Mr. McGregor’s garden where he was chased by
Mr. McGregor who was shouting ‘stop thief!’. Peter was badly frightened and
rushed all over the garden not knowing how to get out. Finally he managed to
escape, and he did not stop running till he got home and fell down on the floor,
shut his eyes, and went to sleep.
His mother came back and wondered what Peter had done with his
clothes. She put him to bed, while his sisters had bread, milk, and blackberries
for supper.

25. zExamples of conventional (non-philosophical)
questions
1 What did their mother tell the kids before she went out?
2 What did McGregor do when he saw Peter? Describe
completely.
3 Do you always listen to your mom? Explain why or why not.
4 Do you know any other similar story like this? Describe it.
5 What do you do when you see an animal in trouble?
6 What are different ways we can keep out harmful animals from
fields and gardens?

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Examples of philosophical questions
 1 Is Mr. McGregor good or bad?
2 Are you necessarily bad if you get into mischief?
3 Is Peter bad?
4 What makes you call a thing or a person ‘good’ or ‘bad’? Can something be good
and bad at the same time?
5 Is Mr. McGregor dangerous to you? Are you dangerous to yourself sometimes?
6 Is Peter a child? How can you know for certain? Do you prefer to be Peter or one
of Peter’s sisters? Why?
7 Do you think Peter goes to McGregor’s garden again?

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Some Advice for Teachers
 ESL/EFL teachers can become familiar with how to
use PBLT in their classes by reading recommended
texts and, if needed, through short training sessions.
 teachers can just ask themselves whether the text
raises any question that cannot simply be answered
by observation, calculation, or by reference to
established facts.

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 Institute for the Advancement of Philosophy for Children
has published curriculum materials and manuals for
teachers with prepared exercises and discussion plans
(for more information refer to Gregory 2008: 11–16).
 Given that a philosophy-based conversation class is not
a reading class and the texts are just a means to
motivate students to talk, simple texts must be chosen
so that students will not face problems comprehending
the text.

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 Reading philosophical questions and dialogues in
miscellaneous disciplines presented in Lipman et al.
(1980), Cam (1995), Haynes (2002), Gregory (2008),
and visiting sites like www.askphilosophers.org
seems to be an efficient way for teachers to learn
how to think about and produce philosophical
questions.

30. zRole of the Teacher
 role of the teacher in P B LT is that of a facilitator and conductor.
She/he assists students to clarify and formulate their ideas and to set
up appropriate dialogues and interaction. The facilitator plays
Socrates’ role, asking questions to help students deepen their
perceptions, find justification for their opinions, and contribute to the
discussion. The PBLT facilitator sees her/himself as a co-inquirer
with the students (Gregory 2008). As
 a facilitator, teachers both guide students and perform as a role
model by asking open-ended questions, presenting alternative views,
seeking clarification, questioning reasons, and by demonstrating self-
correcting behaviours.

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For ”clarity”:
 Do you mean that ... ?
 By ... do you mean ... or ... or maybe something
else? When you say . . . , are you
supposing/assuming that . . .?

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For ‘exploring disagreement’:
 Why do you think you are right?
 What makes you think she is wrong?
 Can you justify your answer?
 Can you think of a better reason?

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For ‘considering alternatives’:
 Does anyone have a different idea?
 How else could we look at this?

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For ‘appealing to criteria’:
 According to what criteria do you say that?

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For ‘making appropriate distinctions’:
 Is this case basically the same as that?

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For ‘jumping to a conclusion’:
 Can we be certain that just because of so-
and-so, it must be the case that such-and-
such?

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P B LT is a new approach to E S L/E F L
teaching and learning with the ff. objectives:
 first of all to indirectly foster students’ communication
skills of speaking and writing,
 secondly to make students reconsider their
perceptions of different issues through raising logical
reasons for their opinions, deconstructing their
assumed beliefs, prejudice, and concepts,
 finally not to accept things blindly by just imitation and
memorization.

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Reflection
 As a language teacher, it would be a big help if we
teach our learners not in a bookish way. Rote
learning and memorization could mean skills in
remembering something but lifelong learning, bigger
pictures and practical concepts and as well as
thought provoking issues should be given more
attention.

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If we want our learners to be independent learners on
their on and most especially to make them be able to
possess that needed critical thinking skills in order to
survive in the mandate of the globalization and
modernization.

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Spoon feeding has long been gone. Learners
nowadays are able and capable of doing the
impossible. So may I end this session with this quote
that we can ponder on:

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