An Empirical Study On The Effect Of PBL On English Majors’ Critical Thinking Ability

During the recent twenty years, in order to cope with the globalization, the westerncountries, especially America, have taken fostering critical thinking as an important taskof the higher education. In China, the requirement for the English majors have beenbecoming more and more rigorous. Being lack of creative abilities, English majors can notdevelop enduringly only with language skills. English majors are weak in the criticalthinking abilities. PBL is a students-centered teaching mode, which put students into themeaningful tasks and make students construct their knowledge positively and actively. Inthe real learning situation, learners make use of the current knowledge and experience andparticipate the process of developing, solving problems and achieving accomplishment inthe way of cooperation. In the process, new knowledge can be acquired and what havelearned will be understood deeply. PBL can stimulate the learning motivation and improvethe ability of cooperation in groups, autonomy and independence in learning, analysis andsolving, and critical thinking. In the current researches, The studies of PBL are mainlyconducted among science and engineering, and medicine students. For English majorsthere are few research.The thesis studied the current researches and the problems in them and try to provethe effect of PBL on English majors’ critical thinking ability by means of an empiricalstudy, documentary analysis, interview. The textbook in the research is English forTourism Service and Management, published by the Higher Education Press. Based on thecontent of the textbook, three projects was designed for one semester. The researchquestions involve:(1) Is there any effect of PBL on English majors’ critical thinking ability?(2) If there is, in what aspects does it demonstrate?The CTDI-CV is used to measure the English majors’ critical thinking dispositions inthe thesis, which is originated from the California Critical Disposition Inventory(CCTDI)and is adapted by Peng Meici and some other scholars.The research result shows that English majors have the some critical thinkingdispositions before the experiment, such as, open-minded, analyticity, inquisitiveness andmaturity. PBL can improve English majors’ critical thinking ability. After a semester’sPBL teaching, the critical thinking disposition of self-confidence is improved in the largestextent, then the second one is maturity and the third one is inquisitiveness. After theexperiment, truth-seeking and systematicity have not improved significantly. After the analysis, there are two implications:Firstly, PBL teaching method isbeneficial for students’ critical thinking. PBL is a feasible teaching method for Englishmajors. Secondly, the English majors’ critical thinking dispositions such as truth-seeking,systematicity and self-confidence, are not very strong even after a semester teaching ofPBL, therefore, teachers should reinforce the training of the three items.