A Study On College English Major Students’ Critical Thinking

In recent years, study on English major students’ critical thinking and cultivation of English major students’ critical thinking ability have gained more and more attention of the scholars in foreign language circle. Generally speaking, critical thinking means determining the authenticity of things with appropriate evaluating criteria and making groundbreaking judgment. The so called groundbreaking judgment is breaking of the original thinking mode and proposing of meaningful and innovative issues. And what the society needs is innovative talents. Therefore cultivating students’ critical thinking is essential to the cultivation of innovative talents for the society.In this thesis, the study on English major students’ critical thinking is carried out in two aspects; therefore the research question is about: what is the overall situation of English majors` critical thinking disposition and critical thinking skill, and is there any significant difference between different grades.The aim of this study is to see the overall situation of critical thinking disposition and critical thinking skill of English major students from four grades, and furthermore, this study aims to analyze the strengths and weakness of their critical thinking, to provide some basic information of English major students’ critical thinking for the future English teaching.The subjects of the study are the English major students from freshman to senior. Two hundred students(for the critical thinking disposition survey) and thirty students(for the critical thinking skill test) are chosen from each grade. In the research, both qualitative and quantitative methods are use for the investigation of students’ critical thinking disposition and critical thinking skill.The study shows that:1. The overall situation of English major students’ critical thinking disposition is in neutral level. And students show strong disposition in inquisitiveness, but weak disposition in confidence. Through the study, it is found that there is no significant difference in English major students’ critical thinking disposition, but there is significant difference in students’ disposition of analyticity, confidence and inquisitiveness.2. For critical thinking skill, students show overall weak situation. And there is no significant difference in the four grades on their critical thinking skill. As to each sub-skill, students get the highest score on interpretation and the lowest score on self-regulation.