A Study On The Effects Of POA-based English Writing Teaching On Junior High School Students’ Critical Thinking Skills

Under the background of key competencies,how to integrate the development of critical thinking skills into English teaching has become a heated topic.English writing plays an important role in cultivating students’ critical thinking skills(CTS for short hereafter).However,in China,the phenomenon of “absence of critical thinking” is common in students’ English writings,which usually manifests itself in insufficient content,incomplete analysis,and lack of logical analysis and explanation.In addition,English teachers tend to focus on language and structure in writing teaching,neglecting the development of students’ CTS.In China,the studies on the development of junior high school students’ CTS,especially the quantitative research on the effects of POA-based English writing teaching on students’ CTS,are not enough.In view of this,this study applies POA to junior high school English writing teaching and conducts a quantitative study,aiming to explore the effects of POA-based English writing teaching on students’ CTS in writing.Specifically,this study aims to answer following three questions:(1)What are the effects of POA-based English writing teaching on junior high school students’ CTS?(2)What are the reasons for the effects of POA-based English writing teaching on students’ CTS?(3)How can students’ CTS be improved via POA-based English writing teaching?The subjects of this study were 72 students from two parallel classes of Grade Eight in a junior high school.In the experiment,traditional writing teaching was used in the control class and POA-based English writing teaching was adopted in the experimental class.The results were analyzed by SPSS 26.0 to find out the effects of POA-based English writing teaching on junior high school students’ CTS.Besides,this study analyzed the reasons for these effects in relation to students’ writings and interviews.Finally,this study discussed how to improve students’ CTS through POA-based English writing teaching with specific teaching steps.On the basis of quantitative and qualitative analysis,this study draws the following conclusions:Firstly,POA-based English writing teaching can improve the overall level of student CTS in terms of critical thinking sub-skills,POA-based English writing teaching can improve students’ skills of analysis,evaluation,and explanation,but its impact on students’ interpretation and inference is not that prominent.Secondly,following reasons can be drawn for the effects of POA-based English writing teaching on students’ CTS.In terms of interpretation,influenced by traditional writing teaching model,students get used to using writing templates and ignore the organization of written expressions.In terms of analysis,in POA class,teachers offer students many scaffolds to guide them to think further step by step.In terms of evaluation,multiple forms of assessments facilitate students’ CTS.As for inference,students lack the ability of inferring and their levels of inference are low.In terms of explanation,in POA class,teachers pay more attention to the teaching of connectives,which helps to cultivate students’ CTS.Thirdly,teachers are able to improve students’ CTS via POA-based English writing teaching in three stages.In the motivating stage,teachers should select appropriate input materials and set corresponding problem scenarios to activate students eagerness of thinking.In the enabling stage,teachers should provide students with time and space to think and guide them to think further through a chain of questions.In the assessing session,students should be guided to reflect in time and carry out multiple assessment methods,combining self-assessment and peer assessment to enhance students’ thinking ability.The major implications of this study are as follows.Firstly,English teachers can apply POA to English writing teaching,which is conducive to improving students’ CTS and enhancing the quality of their writings;Secondly,teachers should focus on strengthening studies on strategies for developing CTS in motivating,enabling and assessing teaching sessions.