Developing critical thinking in academic writing through a metaphor elicitation technique
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Wan Wan
Abstract
While there appears to be a broad consensus about the value of metaphor as an effective means of helping participants think critically about their educational practices, little attention has been paid to its potential for cultivating critical thinking skills relating to academic literacy, and particularly to writing in a second or foreign language (L2) context. The present study introduced an innovative metaphor-oriented activity, where each of three data collection cycles during an academic year involved group discussions and sharing of personal academic writing experiences by a small group of ESL graduate (MA) students, based around a ‘think-of-one or more metaphors’ task, requiring participants to think critically concerning their personal writing beliefs and related writing practices. The study investigated the effect of engaging participants in the set of metaphor-based activities on the development of their critical thinking skills, and discusses how and in what ways the sort of activities might have helped improve their academic writing.
Abstract
While there appears to be a broad consensus about the value of metaphor as an effective means of helping participants think critically about their educational practices, little attention has been paid to its potential for cultivating critical thinking skills relating to academic literacy, and particularly to writing in a second or foreign language (L2) context. The present study introduced an innovative metaphor-oriented activity, where each of three data collection cycles during an academic year involved group discussions and sharing of personal academic writing experiences by a small group of ESL graduate (MA) students, based around a ‘think-of-one or more metaphors’ task, requiring participants to think critically concerning their personal writing beliefs and related writing practices. The study investigated the effect of engaging participants in the set of metaphor-based activities on the development of their critical thinking skills, and discusses how and in what ways the sort of activities might have helped improve their academic writing.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Conventions vii
- Acknowledgement ix
- Introduction 1
-
Researching elicited metaphor in educational contexts
- A practical validation model for researching elicited metaphor 15
- Methodological approaches and strategies for elicited metaphor-based research 39
- A hybrid methodology of linguistic metaphor identification in elicited data and its conceptual implications 65
- Metaphor analysis in L2 education 93
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Specific collection, validation and analysis methods
- Retrospective Metaphor Interviews as an additional layer in elicited metaphor investigations 119
- Crowdchecking conceptual metaphors 139
- The role of metaphors in novice and experienced L2 instructors’ classroom practice 167
-
Testing the power of research instruments
- Researching academic literacy metaphors 189
- Developing critical thinking in academic writing through a metaphor elicitation technique 213
- Metaphorical conceptualizations and classroom practices of instructors teaching an accelerated postsecondary developmental literacy course 239
- Beyond “elicit and run” metaphor research 265
- Chilean preservice teachers’ metaphors about the role of teachers as professionals 289
- Index of names 315
- Index of terms 321
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Conventions vii
- Acknowledgement ix
- Introduction 1
-
Researching elicited metaphor in educational contexts
- A practical validation model for researching elicited metaphor 15
- Methodological approaches and strategies for elicited metaphor-based research 39
- A hybrid methodology of linguistic metaphor identification in elicited data and its conceptual implications 65
- Metaphor analysis in L2 education 93
-
Specific collection, validation and analysis methods
- Retrospective Metaphor Interviews as an additional layer in elicited metaphor investigations 119
- Crowdchecking conceptual metaphors 139
- The role of metaphors in novice and experienced L2 instructors’ classroom practice 167
-
Testing the power of research instruments
- Researching academic literacy metaphors 189
- Developing critical thinking in academic writing through a metaphor elicitation technique 213
- Metaphorical conceptualizations and classroom practices of instructors teaching an accelerated postsecondary developmental literacy course 239
- Beyond “elicit and run” metaphor research 265
- Chilean preservice teachers’ metaphors about the role of teachers as professionals 289
- Index of names 315
- Index of terms 321
