Inductive and deductive reasoning/teaching is a term that gets thrown around in level 5 certifications without going much deeper into either. We are taught that one is good and the other is to be avoided, but again, not much thought is given to either term and what they really mean or why they matter at all. This short essay attempts – and hopefully succeeds – to help teachers more critically evaluate both proposals and develop a deeper, more sound understanding of both terms beyond good and evil. With that said, if you are not satisfied with inductive good and deductive bad, I invite you to keep reading.
Inductive and deductive reasoning are not simply two different ways of presenting language to students. They are actually two completely different ways of experiencing the world and interpreting it. We can date these two perspectives of the world back to Plato and Aristotle. Plato is famous for his allegory of the cave, which illustrates his theory of knowledge and wisdom. To Plato, our senses perceived only shadows of what was real, immutable, and ideal. To him, it made no sense studying the individuals for these change, decay, and eventually die. He believed we could only have opinions of things that changed, decayed and died because there can be no knowledge of mutable things. For this reason, Plato imagined a world of ideas, or ‘molds’ which defined how the individuals (the shadows) would be. Plato thought it wiser to study the molds, which are immutable and eternal instead of studying the individuals. For instance, he believed we would be more informed if we used our reason to study the ‘idea’ of a tree instead of studying individual trees. For Plato, the ‘idea’ of tree was more important than the individual trees and preceeded the individual trees.
Aristotle disagreed strongly. For him, the idea of a tree is alive in each individual tree and the characteristics that these trees have in common form the ‘mold’, the ‘ideal’ tree. In this case, the idea of tree and the individual trees were inseparable. In Aristotle’s perspective we should trust our senses, not disregard them as suggested by Plato, and use this investigation of individual trees to identify the idea that unites them. Notice how different this approach is; instead of reflecting on the mold, the ideal tree who casts individual shadows of trees, Aristotle would rather investigate the individual trees, notice their similarities, and state that the form of a tree is that which all individual trees have in common. Brilliant, isn’t it?
From this we can dive deeper into the meaning of inductive and deductive reasoning. Plato, as we saw above, is a die-hard supporter of deductive reasoning. Allow me to explain. There first exists the law, the mold, the idea, the form, and from these derive the individuals. Aristotle, on the other hand, a supporter of inductive reasoning, where we begin our investigation by looking at the individuals, spotting their similarities, and deriving from them the laws, the molds, the ideas, the form.
In this sense, deductive reasoning and inductive reasoning are much more than simply the order in which things are presented. It’s not simply whether you teach the rule first and then come up with the language exponents or the other way around. It is actually a different belief system on how languages (and the world) work. From a deductive perspective, one sees language being rule/mold/idea-governed which by their application produce language strings; the molds precede the individuals. From an inductive perspective, language is alive and happens in communication and interaction. These ‘individuals’, these bits of language can then be analyzed, categorized and explained, rather then be governed by these rules. This inductive perspective of language sees language as it really is, in my opinion. As a social, flexible, eternally mutable, ever changing phenomenon that can be analyzed by our reason. In this case, I believe Aristotle had a firmer grasp of the real world while Plato was busy in a make-belief séance with his realm of ideas.
Bruno Albuquerque is an Educational Consultant with over a decade of experience in the ELT field, working with National Geographic Learning ELT and other clients. He holds the DELTA, CELTA, TTT, and ECPE, and he is passionate about teacher education and professional development.
