An Empirical Research On The Cultivation Of Critical Thinking In English Writing Teaching For Students In Vocational College

Based on the judgment of the disadvantages of China’s educational model,this study focuses on the relationship between English writing teaching and critical thinking in higher vocational college.On the one hand,the early "cramming" education in the field of English education in China made language acquisition focus on simple imitation and did not pay attention to guiding students to think independently.This teaching model is inconsistent with the demand of social and economic development for talents with innovative thinking ability.On the other hand,the research on critical thinking in the field of English education in China has shown that subject education and critical thinking training have a positive impact on each other,but there are relatively few researches and results on non-English majors in higher vocational colleges.As China is vigorously promoting vocational education and optimizing the educational structure,it is an inevitable choice to implement the national strategy to improve the critical thinking ability of non-English majors of vocational colleges through specific English education and help them better adapt to economic and social development.In this study,freshmen majoring in Physical Education in Wuhan Polytechnic are selected as the subjects.This paper adopts the Chinese version of the Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory revised by Peng Meici and her colleagues,the Critical Thinking Skills Test adapted by Ye Yuzhu and an argumentative paper before and after the implementation of the teaching experiment in experimental class and control class,aiming at exploring in which level students are at in critical thinking and English writing,the relationship between critical thinking and English writing,as well as the impact of English writing teaching integrated with critical thinking on students’ critical thinking and English writing.The questions are listed as follows:(1)What level of critical thinking disposition and critical thinking skills of students are at in vocational college? What about their English writing level?(2)Can the teaching of English writing combined with critical thinking be beneficial to the cultivation of students’ critical thinking ability? In what ways?(3)Is there any relation found between students’ critical thinking ability and their English writing? If yes,what is this relation?According to the research:(1)At present,the overall level of critical thinking tendency and skills,English writing of vocational school students is low.In terms of critical thinking tendency,relatively speaking,students have a good performance in seeking truth,open-mindedness,systematicity and cognitive maturity.In terms of critical thinking skills,generally speaking,the students in the experimental class and control class get medium scores in induction and deduction.In terms of writing,the experimental class and the control class have the mean scores of 6.32 and 6.38 respectively,which are at a low level,indicating that the students’ writing level is generally low.This is generally consistent with the conclusion of critical thinking disposition and skills(2)The combination of critical thinking training and English writing teaching has a positive impact on the critical thinking ability of students from higher vocational.The study found that after the teaching experiment,students’ critical thinking tendency,critical thinking skills and their sub dimensions have been improved.Specifically,at the level of critical thinking tendency,students’ tendency of truth-seeking,open-mindedness and systematicity,critical thinking self-confidence and inquisitiveness has got significant improvement,and their analysis and cognitive maturity have also been slightly improved.At the level of critical thinking skills,students’ skills in interpretation and evaluation of arguments have made significant progress,while recognition of assumptions,induction and deduction advance slightly slow,but subjects are overall at the medium level in these three dimensions.(3)A positive correlation is found between students’ critical thinking ability and their English writing.After the experiment,the study implemented an interview of five students to understand their idea of the new-type teaching,which is conducive to the targeted teaching in the future classroom teaching.Nowadays,as an important subject of national reserve talents,colleges and universities have taken the cultivation of students’ critical thinking as one of the common educational objectives,and perfected the relevant training mechanism from the aspects of course and teaching design.In the field of English education,the relationship between listening,speaking,reading and writing in English teaching and critical thinking has been paid attention to and studied by many scholars,especially the relationship between English reading and critical thinking,while there are relatively few studies on the relationship between English writing and critical thinking,and the research objects mainly circle around middle school students and undergraduate students,with fewer research on students of higher vocational colleges.This paper mainly discusses the relationship between English writing teaching and critical thinking of higher vocational students.In addition,the author puts forward relevant suggestions with its own experience so as to provide certain reference for future research.