Inquiry-based Learning and Historical Thinking

Have you used inquiry-based learning as a teacher or as a student?

I have experienced inquiry-based learning as a student as well as observed its use in several classrooms. However, so far I have not used it in a formal way as a teacher of adult English language learners. As a student in several education classes, specifically methods classes, I have employed inquiry-based learning by working on group problem solving activities related to instruction. For example in a TESOL Methods class, I participated in team lesson planning in which we utilized some facets of inquiry-based learning, such as data collection, analysis, questioning and evaluation, in order to develop a plan that would meet student needs and standards criteria. In addition, researching a topic of interest is another form of inquiry-based learning that I have used as a student. Lastly, I have observed classrooms in which students utilize inquiry-based learning to write a personal family history, publish a magazine and research the answer to a scientific question.

What place would inquiry-based learning and/or historical thinking have in your classroom?

Based upon my reading of the online articles about inquiry-based learning and historical thinking, I believe these methods could have a prominent place in my classroom of adult English language learners. If utilized properly, these approaches could help my students to improve their English language skills while teaching them to find the answers to their language questions on their own. As a simple example, I can envision lessons based on the principles of inquiry-based learning in which commonly available resources such as the dictionary, library or computers are used as tools to explore origins and meanings of words, phrases and idiomatic expressions rather than just giving that information to the students outright. Other skills valued in inquiry-based learning, such as the encouragement of questions about and reflection upon their language learning, would contribute to communicative teaching techniques that are promoted in the field of TESOL. Furthermore, inquiry-based learning is in keeping with Second Language Acquisition Theory (SLA) which suggests that second language learners acquire language more readily when they are actively engaged in a task wherein they not only receive input but also, as Bill Vanpatten says, “interact” with it. This interaction can include the “struggle” for and / or “negotiation” of meaning which results in being “active” and not just passive receivers of information / language, much like the examples of inquiry-based learning described in these articles.

Historical thinking in my classroom of adult English language learners would have a place in helping my students to produce more language. Utilizing historical thinking, they would not only need to use their language skills of reading, writing, listening and speaking coupled with content knowledge of historical facts, but they would be required to interpret and analyze those facts, too. Interpretation and analysis of historical information would support greater production of language than just simply regurgitating in English historical facts they have learned. This is because students would have to negotiate for meaning, look at the facts from different points of view and develop their own conclusions about the meaning of those facts. For example, students could work in groups discussing a piece of historical information that they have read or heard, present orally their own interpretation or conclusion and/or write an opinion about an event and/or speculate on how the world would be different if a specific event had not occurred. In all of these examples, the student would be forced to use more language than simply saying, for instance, that Columbus arrived in the Americas in 1492, thus achieving the goal of increased production of English.

References: http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/inquiry/index.html; http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Historical_thinking
Vanpatten, Bill. (1987). On Babies and Bathwater: Input in Foreign Language Learning. Modern Language Journal, 71, 156-164.