A Study On The Development Of Critical Thinking Of English Majors In Content And Language Integrated Flipped Classroom

Critical Thinking(CT)is the focus of cultivating students’ core literacy and is one of the educational goals in China’s higher education.How to cultivate and improve students’ critical thinking has also been a hot topic in the field of foreign language education.Flipped Classroom(FC)subverts the traditional classroom teaching and creates opportunities for the development of students’ critical thinking.Content and Language Integration(CLI)education emphasizes the synchronous development of subject knowledge,ability and quality,which can also improve students’ thinking ability.However,few studies consider students’ CT in the content and language integrated FC.This study was to probe into the development of 55 first-year English majors’ CT under the content and language integrated FC and the influencing factors.By adopting Wen’s theoretical frameworks of critical thinking,a mixed research design was employed with essay questions,questionnaires and semi-structure interviews as the research instruments.The study found:(1)students’ critical thinking was significantly improved before and after the content and language integrated FC;(2)in the process of a semester,students’ critical cognitive skill showed a tortuous upward trend,and their critical affective dispositions showed a steady upward trend;(3)FC teaching model,CLI education philosophy,students’ learning interest and motivation,teachers’ teaching ability and personal quality were the main factors influencing students’ critical thinking.The research verified the positive impact of the content and language integrated FC on English majors’ critical thinking and provided reference for the cultivation of students’ critical thinking.Besides,the study also expanded the application research of CLI education and FC,and has certain reference value for improving the teaching effect of CLI education and FC.