2016 Volume 58 Issue 3 Pages 109-121
The results of the PISA tests developed by OECD and the MEXT annual achievement tests targeting the 6th and 10th graders suggest that Japanese students, from elementary through high school level, are weak in their ability to apply knowledge, particularly in thinking and writing logically. In order for students to become able to think and write logically, it is critical that they acquire a style of argumentation in which a conclusion is put forward first and then justified with evidence. However, due to the discourse structure in Japanese, in which the causal event is described following the temporal order of the event, the conclusion-first argumentation style does not emerge naturally in Japanese students. In this paper, I present the “Ronri-ka” (logical thinking) program, that is, Japanese-Language-Arts, which I developed together with teachers at the the Kumamoto University affiliated Elementary School to help students develop logical causal thinking by enhancing meta-cognitive skills. I discuss the theoretical ideas behind the program and how it changed students' habit of thinking and argumentation style.
