LD SIG Realizing Autonomy Conference Proceedings

PRAC T I C E S O F C R I T I C A L T H I N K I N G,
CRIT I C A L I T Y A ND LE A R N E R AU T ONOM Y
Richard Pemberton & Mike Nix
In this paper, we explore the development of critical thinking and criticality, and how
they connect with learner autonomy, in two contexts. Richard discusses the developmentof critical thinking skills by student teachers taking an MA in Teaching English to
Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) at the University of Nottingham, and Mike
considers the role that criticality plays in the self-directed academic literacy ofundergraduate law students at Chuo University. We then use Ron Barnett’s model ofcriticality (Barnett, 1997) and a social practices approach to consider some different
forms that criticality takes and how these relate to understandings of autonomy.
本論では、二つの事例を通じて、クリティカルシンキングとクリティカリティの発達について、そして、どのようにしてこれらが学習者自律性（オートノミー）と関連づけられるかを考える。Richardは、ノッティンガム大学のTESOL（英語を母国語としない人に対する英語教育）修士課程で学んでいる英語教師によるクリティカルシンキ
ングの能力の発達について論じ、Mikeは中央大学法学部生の自律的なアカデミック・
リテラシークラスにおいてクリティカリティが果たす役割について取り上げる。そして、Ron Barnett のクリティカリティのモデル(Barnett, 1997) とsocial practices
approachを用いて、クリティカリティの取る様々な形態とこれらがどのように学習者
自律性（オートノミー）の理解と結びついているかを考察する。

Introduction
Criticality and learner autonomy are both widely seen as desirable educational goals, and often
understood as interdependent or even mutually indispensable attributes. Raya, Lamb andVieira (2007), for example, claim that, “The competence to think critically is coextensive with
the notion of autonomy and self-suﬃciency” (p. 43). And in a well-known characterisation,
Little (1991) describes autonomy as a capacity “for detachment, critical reflection, decisionmaking, and independent action” (p. 4). We share this belief that it is important for students todevelop both their criticality and autonomy and we have both been exploring ways to help
students achieve this in the two quite diﬀerent contexts in which we work: a postgraduate MA
TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) programme at the University of
Nottingham in the UK, where Richard teaches and Mike did some research during his
2010-2011 sabbatical year; and a programme to develop students’ academic literacy in English
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LD SIG Realizing Autonomy Conference Proceedingsin the Law Faculty at Chuo University in Japan, where Mike teaches. Reflecting on this workourselves, and discussing it together, has raised many questions for us about criticality, criticalthinking, and autonomy: What do we mean by criticality and critical thinking, and is it useful
to distinguish between them? How do they help the development of learner autonomy, andhow does learner autonomy support the growth of criticality and critical thinking? Do
diﬀerent approaches to learner autonomy encourage particular understandings of criticality?
Does, for example, emphasizing “the conceptual link between autonomy and rationality” (Rayaet al., 2007, p. 43) imply criticality is the application of logical thinking techniques? If, like
Little (1991, p. 4), we take learner autonomy to be a “particular kind of psychological relation
to the process and content of…learning”, do we then approach critical thinking as a matter ofindividual cognitive development? Or do we need a more socially situated understanding of
criticality and autonomy, and to recognise, as Esch (2009) suggests, a choice between tworoads: “the road giving prominence to individual personal autonomy or the road giving
prominence to autonomy as the capacity to exercise critical thinking about learning as a participant in asocial milieu” (p. 33, italics in the original)?
These questions become more important for advocates of learner autonomy to address as the
top-down pressure to develop students’ ability to think critically increases in educational
contexts around the world. Criticality has already become a key requirement in courses andevaluation in higher education in the UK, where Richard currently works. In Hong Kong,
where Richard worked previously, the development of critical thinking often appears as astated aim of educational policy documents, and many teachers agree with its importance but
have diﬀering views of what it means and how to facilitate it (Stapleton, 2011). In Japan, where
Mike works, education policies to promote criticality at a national, or even local, level are notyet significant, but there seems to be a growing belief amongst language teachers in thenecessity of promoting students’ critical thinking, a trend reflected in the recent formation ofa Critical Thinking SIG in JALT (the Japan Association for Language Teaching) as well as thelonger-term existence of a similar SIG in JACET (the Japan Association of College English
Teachers). Importantly, there are divergent conceptions of criticality in educational policy (andpedagogy) in various countries, including Japan and the UK. These include:• a liberal arts emphasis on the role of critical thinking in the rounded intellectual growthof the individual;• a civic-minded association of criticality with active and informed participation indemocratic citizenship; and• a more instrumental focus on critical thinking skills as one of a range of capacities
demanded of the workforce by the rapidly changing, information-based economy of theearly 21st century (Barnett, 1997; Johnston, Mitchell, Myles, & Ford, 2001, pp. 97-100).
Whilst autonomy will likely continue to be an educational buzzword (Little, 1991), criticalthinking is clearly now another very important one (Stapleton, 2011) and the insistent, andSpecial Issue of Learning Learning, Volume 19, Issue 2, July 2012（学習の学習特別号）!

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discordant, noise in educational policy and practice around the need for diﬀerent forms of
criticality will probably also impact upon thinking about the development of learner autonomy.
Claims about the interrelatedness of autonomy and criticality focus on capacities for, or statesof being, autonomous and critical. There seems, however, to be little research that investigates
the actual dynamics of how learners become more autonomous and critical in specificeducational contexts, or of the synergies and tensions that pedagogy for criticality andautonomy might encounter in practice. In this paper, we explore some of these questions forour two contexts. In what follows, Richard explains, in response to questions from Mike, hiswork developing critical thinking with student teachers on the MA TESOL programme at
Nottingham. Mike then discusses, also in a question and answer format, the development ofcriticality and autonomy with undergraduate students in the Law Faculty at Chuo. Finally, we
use Barnett’s (1997) work on criticality and critical being, as well as the idea of literacies associally situated practices, as frames to make sense of criticality and autonomy across contexts.

Richard: Developing Critical Thinking with
MA TESOL Students at the University of Nottingham
What Is the Context You are Working in?
The teaching context is a one-year MA TESOL programme at the University of Nottingham.
This caters mainly for overseas student teachers, some of whom have fairly limited teachingexperience: the minimum requirement is only two months. The main elements of the
programme are three 20-credit core modules, four 15-credit electives, and a 60-credit
dissertation. (The modules and electives are listed on the course structure page of the
programme website). The assessment for the programme is very academic: there are essay
assignments for each module (of 4,000 words and 3,000 words) and the dissertation is
12,000-15,000 words.
At the same time, we are very much trying to help students relate the academic input theyreceive to their own teaching contexts, so that they apply theory to practice throughout thecourse. This is emphasized in the main stated aim of the course: “to develop your criticalunderstanding of recent developments in TESOL theory and practice and to stimulate you toreflect on your own teaching” (see the programme website). So, as well as the combination oftheory and practice, it’s important that “developing critical understanding” is fronted up quite
clearly as the key aim of the course. Critical thinking therefore plays an important role
throughout the programme at Nottingham.
Why Focus on Developing Critical Thinking Rather than Learner Autonomy?
One of the reasons for the focus on critical thinking is that learner autonomy is, to a large
extent, a given in the course. It underpins the whole approach to postgraduate study so that,for example, the students have control not only over where and when they study, but also overwhat and how. The topics for assignments are normally chosen and developed by the students,
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and the whole content, structure and approach of their writing is also decided by them. So
these elements of freedom and choice, which are obviously central aspects of learnerautonomy, are also crucial in postgraduate study. These are supported, of course, by teaching
and tutorials, and also by learning circles, small study groups that we have set up, that are a key
way for students to develop learner autonomy collaboratively and therefore an important partof the course. Overall, then, the importance of learner autonomy in the programme is verymuch assumed.
Unlike learner autonomy, however, critical thinking is an overt part of the assessment
framework at Nottingham and other UK universities. For example, as Table 1 shows, one of
the marking criteria at merit level (equivalent to a B grade) for Masters courses in the School of
Education at Nottingham states that students should be able to critique research and practice,so that is a criterion we look out for when we mark assignments. As a result, it is important for
students to develop their criticality if they are to do well on the course.

Table 1
Grading Criteria for Masters Level Courses (Evison & Pemberton, 2009, p. 32)
DISTINCTION

MERIT

PASS

Analysis,
Demonstrates ability to Shows evidence ofDemonstrates somereflection and analyse and critiquestrong analytical ability; evidence of analyticalcriticality
theory, research and able to critiqueability and capacity
accounts of practice research and practice for reflection

Another reason for this focus is that critical thinking is key to the development we want
students to make during the MA. By the time they finish the programme, we want them to feelthey are part of an academic teaching community and able, for example, to pick up an ELTJournal article and take a critical position on issues that they read about which aﬀect their own
teaching context. So by the end of the MA, we would like students to be able to take critical
positions on issues that impact on them.
Which Parts of the Programme Support Students in Developing Their CriticalThinking?
There are two main parts of the programme which support critical thinking. The first is thelearning circles, the small study groups which meet every week outside of regular class time. In
these, students have the opportunity to discuss theories and research that they have been
introduced to in class, and come across in their own reading, and then relate these to their own
diﬀerent contexts. So the learning circles are an important arena for students to startdeveloping their own positions within a very safe and supportive group environment.

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The second type of support involves a series of curriculum features that my colleague, Jane
Evison, and I introduced specifically to prepare students to develop the ability to critiqueresearch and practice, on which they are assessed during the course. As well as a workshop on
critical reading, this support includes two mini-assignments in the first semester. The first is acomparative literature review in which students are expected to show their own stance at somepoint. The second is a critique of the methodology of a particular paper in which they need to
be able to identify methodological strengths or weaknesses of the paper. An extreme exampleof the latter might be to question how sound it is to draw statistical conclusions from a surveyof five people. These assignments are supported by group tutorials that take place before
students begin individual reading and writing for the assignment, where we model the type ofwriting that is expected and students discuss example papers in groups. Students often surprisethemselves actually by the insights they can come up with when working together in thesetutorials.
What Are the Aims in Supporting Students to Develop Their Critical Thinking?
There are four main aims we have in providing students with help for improving their criticalthinking. The first is for students to feel they can critically evaluate the academic work theyread. This is something that, very understandably, they find diﬃcult when they start thecourse, especially if they have limited knowledge or experience. Many will think, “What righthave I got to critique published work?” But we want them to learn to see that they do have thisright—that everyone can express an opinion. Second, of course, opinions by themselves are notenough. We expect students to be able to support their position with reasoned argument, todevelop a justified stance. Thirdly, we hope that students will express themselves in their own
way, without feeling that they have to closely follow a formula, and that they will be able todevelop their own voice.
And our last aim in supporting critical thinking–and this may appear a very grand aim—is forstudents to become producers rather than reproducers of knowledge. Of course, to an extent, allof us reproduce knowledge, but we want to move students away from merely repeating what X
and Y have said, and to be able to add something of themselves. Again, we would like to reachthe point where the reader can see something of the student’s own position in their writing.
What Kinds of Development Are Students Making as a Result of This?
The following four quotes from interviews with students on the programme are representativeof the kinds of progress we see from students in developing their critical thinking.
Rebecca: For me critical reading is a lot more useful than I felt before. I think I used to treat
it like a task that our tutor pushed us to do this. Now I think I felt the necessity... I try to findthe support from the materials for my assignment… I actually enjoy challenging myself.
Samantha: I expected to come in and this guy or this woman would tell me “OK this is how
it’s supposed to be done and this is the right way”, or whatever, but then you realise there isno right. Initially it’s frustrating but then you soon learn that it’s better when you get tochoose, you know and you justify those choices, so I like the way that in class we always had
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to discuss our point of view, our experiences, bring them in, compare them, use them, use thetheories that we’re learning, and I think by explaining our opinions, we realise “OK this iswhere I stand, this is the way I see it.”Deborah: I felt what we read in books are not 100% correct. That’s what I learned. I foundonce we are reading books we will believe everything which is written in the book, we
believe the author’s beliefs, but I felt it’s incorrect and this kind of stuff may be notappropriate or suitable to my teaching context. So after nine months I know how to decide
what is right and what is wrong depends on his evidence and whether this is applicable in
my context. This is what I learned.
Susan: Before I was just a receiver, a passive receiver, I would read whatever I have andjust accept it for what it is. Never occurred to me that—well even if it occurred to me, I feltthat it wouldn’t be right to question, I mean if something’s published, you have theimpression that it’s published, it’s everywhere, it’s right, it can’t be wrong. But now I feel like
“No, you can argue, you can say what’s on your mind”, I mean before I used to say “Howcan you argue a person like that, a really well-known writer or whatever”, but now I feel“No, you can do it”—as long as you’re arguing with reason. I feel like I have a voice now.
In each case, we can clearly see development from the start to the end of the course. For
Rebecca, the first student, there is a clear movement from a very externalised motivation in
the first assignment to a much more internalised motivation by the end of the course. In
Samantha’s case, we see the clear development of a justified stance. Deborah shows thedeveloping ability to read critically in terms of applicability to her own context. And with
Susan we have the development of her own voice. Obviously, students develop at diﬀerent
rates, but this kind of development is something that we see in almost all of the students
taking the MA TESOL programme at Nottingham.

Mike: Developing Criticality and Autonomy in English
With Law Students at Chuo University
What is the Context You Are Working in?
I teach in the Taught-in-English programme in the Law Faculty at Chuo University (see theprogramme website for more information). The Faculty has three divisions—Law, Politics, andInternational Business and Law—which means students have a range of interests, not just inlaw but in politics, international relations, human rights, development issues, trade, business,and globalization. In the Taught-in-English programme, we want to give students opportunities
to explore these academic interests in English by developing their self-directed academic
literacy for engaging with content in English. By that, we mean students being able to choose
issues of interest to them to research, discuss with other students, and present on or write
about, so that they can learn together about these issues in English.

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Two examples of the courses in the programme—and the kind of issues students look at on thecourses—are Basic Research and Discussion and Multicultural Japan (see Table 2 below). Basic
Research and Discussion is an intermediate-level course in which students look at any social,legal, political or global issues they are interested in. Multicultural Japan is a more advanced
class in which students focus on a particular area of study over a year and choose a number ofissues to investigate to build their knowledge and understanding of the field.

Table 2
Two Courses in the Taught-in-English Programme and Examples of Research Issues Chosen by Students
BASIC RESEARCH AND DISCUSSION
1st & 2nd year, Intermediate

MULTICULTURAL JAPAN
3rd year, Advanced• Japan & Tuna Fishing• Buraku Problem in Japan• Junk Food

• Voting Rights for Korean Permanent Residents• Developing Countries’ Education• Japanese Identity

Students research the issues they have chosen, in cycles of three to four weeks. Outside class,they find sources of information for their issue, usually online, and read and make research
notes. Each week in class, they explain their research using those notes and discuss it withother students in pairs. They reflect on the development of their understanding throughtalking with other students but also by writing research diaries. And they also try to focus theirresearch on specific questions which will help them build their knowledge of the issue and,very importantly, develop their understanding of it. At the end of this cycle, they give a
presentation with a poster, flip chart or Powerpoint slides to other students.
In contrast to the MA TESOL programme at Nottingham, the development of criticality is
not a formal requirement or criterion for grading in the Law Faculty at Chuo, although manymembers of faculty see it as important. In the Taught-in-English programme, full- and parttime teachers have identified criticality as an important element of students’ engagement with
content, and this has become an area of discussion in faculty development workshops (alsoknown as teacher retreats) for teachers in the programme. Helping students to develop theirunderstanding of an issue, not just gather information about it, has become a crucial part ofthe programme. We want students to recognise and reflect on their own views on an issue, toengage with diﬀerent viewpoints that they encounter through research and discussion, and soto develop their own thinking about an issue with other students. This is the notion ofcriticality that we are working with.
Why Focus on Developing Criticality and Learner Autonomy?
To think more about the development of criticality and autonomy in the Taught-in-English
programme, I will draw on interviews with four students, starting with Saori, a first-year
student in the Basic Research and Discussion class. Explaining her research in one cycle of theSpecial Issue of Learning Learning, Volume 19, Issue 2, July 2012（学習の学習特別号）!

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course, Saori brings out some of the ways that learner autonomy relates to development of a
critical understanding about an issue.
Saori: I’m interested in the fourth project about farmers of tobacco leaf. There are many
farmers of tobacco leaf in Tanegashima, Kagoshima—my hometown… At that time, theDemocratic Party of Japan said they will raise the price of tobacco. The topic, tobacco tax
is very close to us, so that is very interesting for me… Following the connections, I
researched various things: first, the danger of tobacco, second, the tax of tobacco and third,
JT [Japan Tobacco] and tobacco farmers… I learnt many things but first tobacco tax is very
high because half of the price of tobacco is tax. At first I thought simply tobacco farmer isunfortunate. During the project I think to protect tobacco farmers is a very good thing butthat makes foreign people’s health bad. In my presentation, I said, “There’s a contradiction
there. I’m not on one side or the other”. That was interesting for my audience.
Three points are important here. One is that Saori brings her own interests—concerns that are
literally very local—into the classroom and into her research. The second is the way she
actively self-directs the development of her research not just to develop her knowledge, but tobring in new viewpoints and see this issue from diﬀerent perspectives. And the third point,
very interestingly, is that Saori is not rushing to give her own opinion, or to present anargument, in the way that is advocated in some approaches to critical thinking. She is holding
the issue open, and presenting it from diﬀerent sides, an approach that she finds is interestingfor the students listening to her presentation. Saori’s case suggests, then, some ways thatlearner autonomy and criticality intersect that are useful to consider more.
What Are the Connections Between Criticality, Learner Autonomy and Identity in
the Taught-in-English Programme?
Let me take up the crucial question of interest first. When students on courses such as Basic
Research and Discussion or Multicultural Japan self-direct their work in English in terms of theirown interests and experiences, we start to see what Douglas Barnes has referred to as theinteraction between school knowledge (“the knowledge which someone else presents to us”) andaction knowledge (“that view of the world on which our actions are based”) (Barnes, 1992, p. 81).
So, when students bring their own concerns and questions to the knowledge they encounter inuniversities, they can start to make that knowledge their own, to use it to author their own
understandings of the world. As David Little (1991, pp. 11-12) has suggested, this engagement
between action knowledge and school knowledge is at the heart of learner autonomy.
Two other principles of language learner autonomy also support criticality as students develop
their understandings of the world in the Taught-in-English programme. One is that students
are not just language learners but are also active users of the language for learning andcommunicating about issues of concern to them (Little, 2000, pp. 15-16; Benson, 2002, pp.
15-17). The other principle is part of the political approach to learner autonomy (Benson, 1997)
and emphasizes the right of learners to decide the content of their learning, and to use
language for their own reasons and purposes. This quote from Yuto, a third-year student on theSpecial Issue of Learning Learning, Volume 19, Issue 2, July 2012（学習の学習特別号）!

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Multicultural Japan course, gives a good sense of how his active, purposeful use of English relates
to the development of his thinking about an issue.
Yuto: I’m very interested in the environment. In [Taught-in-English classes], we can choose
topics relatively freely, so we can pick up interesting topics and I enjoy researching…. For
example, I researched about developing countries’ environmental and human rights. Before
researching that, I didn’t think it was a serious problem. After researching that I felt it wasvery, very serious problem in developing countries. About air pollution, almost every air
pollution country is a developing country…. So how to solve this problem? What’s the roleshould developing countries play? And developed countries? What should developed
countries do to solve that? I researched about law related to the environment.
Notable here is the way that Yuto identifies problems for himself, focusing on areas andquestions that will drive his knowledge forward, and suggesting that problem-setting isimportant for this kind of criticality. Douglas Barnes captures well this relationship between
developing our understandings of the world and a purposeful, autonomous approach tolearning: “We educate children in order to change their behaviour by changing their view ofthe world. We want to change the way they perceive the world they live in, not so they will
carry out our purposes, but so they can formulate their own purposes, and estimate theirvalue” (Barnes, 1992, p. 80).
Questions of identity are also salient here. As learners bring school knowledge and action
knowledge together in learning about issues of interest to them, they are also integrating theiridentities as students with their identities in the wider world outside the classroom. And they
are developing identities as language users who can decide the content of their own learning inthat language. The importance of this sense of their own interest, purpose and control inlanguage use is made clear—by its absence—when we consider ways in which autonomy may
not promote the development of criticality.
In What Ways Can Learner Autonomy Limit Criticality?
When students do not have an active and purposeful engagement with an issue, their learnerautonomy may become instrumental. They make choices about issues to research and sourcesof information to read because they are required to by the teacher, rather than in terms of
their own interests and concerns. So, under these conditions, their choices lack motivation andmeaning. Students are being autonomous because they are required to be, completing tasks forthe course rather than exploring their interests in the world. The result is often a recycling ofcommon knowledge about a topic. Students researching smoking, for example, often gather
information about its harmful eﬀects on health, confirming what they already knew, but notgoing beyond this in the way that Saori did, in her research on tobacco farming and tax, toencounter new problems and perspectives. As a result, this instrumental autonomy does notencourage or support criticality as an engagement with alternative perspectives and thedevelopment of new understandings about the world.

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How Can We Help Students Engage With Alternative Ways of Thinking?
On the Taught-in-English programme, we have tried to provide research resources that enable
students to encounter diﬀerent viewpoints and arguments about an issue. Many teachers stressthat students should consider the interests and perspectives of diﬀerent actors involved in anissue. Like some other teachers, I have also tried giving mini-presentations that raise awarenessof diﬀerent approaches to a topic. But, whilst students generally find all of these interestingand helpful, what they say is most useful for developing their understanding of issues is talking
with other students, exchanging ideas, hearing about other research. In other words, it is aprocess of co-constructing ways of thinking that is important for the development of theircriticality. Central to this is “exploratory talk” (Barnes, 1992), the kind of talk that explores
issues, looks for diﬀerent angles, brings in diﬀerent opinions, rather than trying quickly toreach a conclusion or just demonstrate knowledge. It also involves “interthinking” (Mercer,
2000), thinking with other people, rather than just inside our own heads. This then relates
clearly to another principle of learner autonomy, that of interdependence. So there aresynergies between criticality and autonomy in forms of discourse—exploratory talk andinterthinking—and kinds of relationships—interdependent and collaborative—which support
each other. Satomi and Midori, third-year students on the Multicultural Japan course, highlight
this:
Satomi: It’s important to have a discussion with classmates not just report back on researchbecause it helps finding new points of the research, another viewpoint, or another aspect for
the issue. For me it’s useful–thinking together and talking together.
Midori: “What does this mean to you?”,“Why do you choose this topic?” From thesequestions, I can consider why I choose this issue, how it relates to my interest, I can find myfocus point and I can tell the stories from my experiences.
Satomi suggests how interthinking—“thinking together and talking together”—can help
students move beyond their current understandings to new ones. Midori talks about the waythat exploratory talk, in the form of questioning, can help her not only to think about andfocus her research but also to tell the stories of her experience. She is researching Japanese
identity and thinking back to her experiences during a homestay in Australia when people
asked her what it meant to be Japanese and she started to wonder about that issue. And sothese stories can now come into her critical understanding of the world.
Interestingly, Satomi and Midori told me that their way of talking together, and questioning
each other, had actually developed in classes in their first and second years, in which theteachers had emphasised the importance of critical thinking and particularly of asking eachother critical questions. We see here then how the kind of criticality we aspire to in theTaught-in-English programme may develop out of a more specific kind of critical thinking
when students use it as part of their own self-directed, interested, and purposeful engagementwith content.

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Criticality, Critical Thinking and Autonomy Across Different Contexts
To continue, we want to bring in a more theoretical framework for thinking about criticality,
critical thinking and autonomy in diﬀerent contexts. By contexts, we are referring both to theprogrammes at Nottingham and Chuo, but also to the way that specific academic practices,such as assignment writing, constitute microcontexts for criticality and autonomy withinprograms and institutions.
Forms of Criticality
The first approach we find useful is taken from Ron Barnett’s work on criticality in UK higher
education (Barnett, 1997; see also Johnston et al., 2011). Barnett has identified three kinds ofcriticality, or three ways of being critical, that relate to formal knowledge, the self, and theworld:• Critical reason—being critical about formal knowledge = critical thinking?
• Critical self-reflection—being critical about our own beliefs and ideas, experiences andpractices.
• Critical engagement (action)—being critical about the world and our place in it.
For Barnett, critical thinking is a form of critical reason because it is concerned with formal
knowledge. He suggests that a broader form of criticality, critical being, involves theintegration or interaction of all these ways of being critical. Here, there are clear parallels with
the interaction between school knowledge and action knowledge. There are also echoes, in
Barnett’s work, of the concern from Henri Holec and the Council of Europe, during theformative period for autonomy in language learning in the late 1970s, that learner autonomy
should carry over from formal education into other areas of life (Little, 1991, pp. 6-7). Barnett’s
approach, then, not only helps to make sense of the diﬀerence between critical thinking andcriticality, but enables us to see that we have a common concern at both Nottingham and Chuowith developing critical thinking into a broader kind of criticality, in which students integrate
formal knowledge with other teaching contexts and the world beyond the classroom.
Levels of Criticality
The second approach that may be useful for thinking about criticality and autonomy isconcerned with levels of criticality and students’ development in terms of those. Barnett’s
model involves four levels of criticality, but it is useful to focus on one here: the instrumental
level. The key point about this is it is other-directed, with tasks imposed on learners, not selfdirected. These tasks might require learners to reflect on themselves in terms of criteria set by
their teacher not by themselves, or to do an assignment in which they have to be criticalbecause the teacher tells them to. This instrumental kind of criticality is often related to using
certain skills or techniques, so Barnett would locate critical thinking skills very much in thisarea. Here we can see a parallel with instrumental autonomy, in which there is a similar lack ofSpecial Issue of Learning Learning, Volume 19, Issue 2, July 2012（学習の学習特別号）!

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purpose and control on the part of learners who make choices because that is what is requiredof them. Again, there is a common concern at Nottingham and Chuo with moving beyond
instrumental criticality to a kind of criticality that involves control and agency—elements of anactive, purposeful learner autonomy—as well as critical stance and voice, as a way of students
expressing their own view of the world.
A framework of types and levels of criticality, based loosely on Barnett, oﬀers, then, a way tounderstand a process of development from critical thinking around formal knowledge into a
broader criticality that also addresses the self and the world, as well as a parallel developmentfrom an instrumental level of criticality to a more agentic one. But we should also ask if thedevelopment of criticality is really a linear development, a smooth path that students movealong in a predictable pattern.
Criticality and Autonomy as Social Practices: Learning Circles, Classes andAssignments
We want to suggest that an alternative might be to see criticality and autonomy as sociallysituated practices. This approach to criticality and autonomy draws on the New Literacy
Studies and its understanding of literacies as historically and socially specific practices (see, forexample, Barton, Hamilton, & Ivanic, 2000). It foregrounds the ways that criticality andautonomy—and the kind of identities, discourses and relationships that they involve—will takediﬀerent forms in diﬀerent social contexts. The contexts we are thinking of here are thelearning circles at Nottingham that Richard has mentioned, as well as the taught classes for themodules and electives, and the written assignments on which they are assessed. The learning
circles are significant because this is where the students get together in groups, and ask
themselves: What is this all about? What does this mean to me? Here, they can really workthrough issues from the course and try to relate them to diﬀerent contexts. So the learning
circles are a very important part of the programme and one that does not exist in other MA
TESOL programmes that we know of.
Learning circles consist of three to five students meeting without a teacher present, so thestudents are in control of the pace and structure of their discussions. In contrast, in the classes
that students take, especially the required modules, there are about 20 students and theteacher structures the class, usually around a Powerpoint presentation with short breaks forstudent discussion. One issue that the students raise is their ability to relate formal knowledge
to their teaching contexts and practices in these two contexts. Whereas they feel they can dothat quite eﬀectively in learning circles, in classes, especially early in the course, they feel they
have less chance to do that so well. According to one student, Betty:
Betty: In our class, we just talk academic things. [But in learning circles] we have to talkabout the theoretical part and discuss about our experiences in learning and teaching …So
it’s like between daily and academic talking…first we have to express it academically andhelp each other if there is misunderstanding or unclear part. Then we move to ourexperiences.

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Another issue here is students’ identities and their sense of their own ability to be critical. In
classes, students, especially those with limited teaching experience, often worry about theirright to be critical, wonder what expertise or authority they have for that, and feel nervous
because there are “experts” in the class—other students and the teacher who know more thanthem. But in learning circles they become quite critical with each other and see that as helpful.
Betty: While discussing in learning circles, if I have some misunderstanding about
theoretical part, other girls just warn me, “No, it’s not like this. It should be like this...” I
don’t feel myself sad or bad when they said something like that because, I don’t know, they
just try to help me.
One more comparison, which is really important, is between assignments and learning circles.
The programme at Nottingham is assessed entirely on assignments, and demonstrating
criticality in those assignments is therefore very important. But, again according to Betty, theform of criticality that is possible or necessary with a written assignment is very diﬀerent fromthat which develops in the learning circles.
Betty: While writing [assignments] I’m the only one who looks at the topic from one
perspective. Maybe I cannot see the other perspectives but in learning circles it is totallydifferent. If there are four people then it means in a learning circle there are four different
ideas or maybe one basic idea but we can all improve from different sides.
In this description of the learning circles, we get a picture of interdependence andinterthinking, and of new viewpoints and understandings developing through discussion, thatecho the accounts of the way that students develop their criticality through dialogue andquestioning in the Taught-in-English programme at Chuo. It is this kind of exploratory
criticality, which integrates knowledge, the self and the world, and that interacts dynamicallyand dialectically with the development of learners’ autonomy, that we are most interested insupporting. However, we also recognize that critical thinking concerned with formal
knowledge is valuable and can develop into broader forms of criticality, and that specificinstitutional contexts and academic practices, such as individual written assignments, may
require particular forms of criticality to be used. A social practices approach, which considers
the varying forms that criticality takes in diﬀerent contexts, addresses the kinds of diﬀerencesthat Betty points out. It raises questions about the intersections between the diﬀerent
practices of criticality in an institution, as well as about the relations between autonomy andcriticality in those practices. It is these questions that we turn to now at the end of this paper.
Questions for Further Research Into Practices of Criticality and Autonomy
We have seen that students on the MA TESOL at Nottingham report significant overall
development in their own critical thinking, in their ability to evaluate research in terms of
their teaching contexts, to take a critical stance, and find their own voice. We have also lookedat how criticality takes diﬀerent forms in diﬀerent academic sites and processes such aslearning circles, seminar classes, and written assignments. A key question, then, is how theNottingham students see the connections—or dissonances—in the development of their
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criticality across the whole programme and over the course of the year. Extending this kind of
inquiry to the Law Faculty at Chuo would mean looking at how the development of criticality
in the Taught-in-English programme relates to expectations within the Faculty about students’
being critical in the rest of their law, politics and business classes, some of which are seminartype classes that involve students making presentations and writing reports but most of which
are exam-assessed lecture courses.
The particular forms that criticality tends to take in the learning circles at Nottingham, andhow these relate to other parts of the programme, is a significant area for further research,
because the learning circles are a distinctive feature of the Nottingham course but not of other
MA TESOL programmes in the UK. And whilst it is perhaps easier to track the emergence ofa focused critical stance and a willingness to critique the “experts” in student assignments thanin learning circles, it is also useful to understand the contribution that more exploratory andcollaborative types of criticality can make to students’ capacity to reflect critically on theirown teaching practices and contexts. The emphasis on self-direction also makes the learning
circles a key site for investigating the interactions between learner autonomy and criticality.
Similarly, the Chuo programme raises questions about the synergies and tensions between
learner autonomy and an exploratory, independent type of criticality—but this time in aclassroom context and with undergraduate students—particularly between students selfdirecting their research and taking a critical stance to the knowledge that they encounter.
The importance of written assignments on the Nottingham programme provides an urgent
reason for students there to develop their criticality. At the same time, it limits to one
particular academic practice the formal assessment of students’ ability to take a critical stanceand reflect critically on their contexts. Recognising this, Richard has been considering thepossibility of expanding the assessment on the Nottingham programme to include digitalstorytelling, a genre that seems likely to encourage the development of a personally engaged
critical voice more than written assignments do. Here, then, an understanding of the diﬀerent
forms that criticality takes can feed back into practices of academic assessment, so that
diﬀerent, and perhaps more autonomy-friendly, forms of criticality can also be valued andevaluated. Mike and other colleagues at Chuo would also like to explore digital storytelling as away for students to present their own self-directed research about the world as well as toreflect critically on their own histories and experiences. How this emerging practice of digitalacademic literacy supports the interdependent development of learner autonomy andcriticality is one more question for future research.
Acknowledgement
As well as thanking Andy Barfield, Kay Irie and Alison Stewart for their feedback on earlier
drafts of this paper, Mike would like to express his appreciation to Andy, Kay, Alison, Darren
Elliot, Rich Silver and all the other organisers of the Realizing Autonomy conference for the
belief, commitment and support that made it possible for Richard to give his contribution to
the plenary. It was incredibly important to Richard to be part of this event.
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Richard Pemberton See p. 95-99.

Mike Nix works in the Law Faculty at Chuo University. His teaching and research there are focused on
helping students develop self-directed, critical and multimodal forms of academic literacy for learning in
English about social, political, legal and global issues of interest to them. He has also done research recently
at the University of Nottingham, with Richard Pemberton and others, on autonomy, criticality and theownership of English in the development of academic literacy by international MA students.
To cite this article: Pemberton, R., & Nix, M. (2012). Practices of critical thinking, criticality and learnerautonomy. In K. Irie & A. Stewart (Eds.), Proceedings of the JALT Learner Development SIG Realizing
Autonomy Conference, [Special issue] Learning Learning, 19(2), 79-94. Retrieved from http://ld-sig.org/LL/
19two/pemberton-nix.pdf

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