Learning to learn and learning to think

Abstract

This dissertation, a total of eight chapters aims at describing and analyzing how learners behave while they make the efforts in learning and thinking. For this, it was hypothesized that is that our learners can learn effectively and develop their thinking abilities and utilize learning strategies if a learning atmosphere is created for them in which they behave without giving absolute priority to the compensatory system. Data was collected through a series of questionnaires administered to teachers of different disciplines) and to 2nd-years students at the Department of English, plus the researcher’s classroom observations. These research instruments intend to investigate the students’ learning and thinking, and thus decide for specific course objectives to be attained. All this was to be sustained by an appropriate methodology. The general objective is that students should learn how to adopt a learning pattern to learn the language they are learning, i.e. learning to learn in concert with activating/re- activating their thinking potential and abilities, namely learning to think. This research also aims at showing that what is happening in the department of English (and probably elsewhere) is that learners have developed an attitude vis-à-vis learning which is to rely entirely on a Samaritan compensatory system which has made them indefatigable least-efforts learners. A total of two experiments were designed with the intention to study the effect of building awareness in learners for working without relying on the compensatory system, but rather on their learning and thinking efforts and potentials. The results tend to show that first, the compensatory system turned out to be the gravedigger of pedagogy in the department of English (and probably in all Algerian universities!), a fact which all the teachers agree upon. This ends up in that learning and thinking are ‘sentenced’ to be limited to getting a pass mark.