An Empirical Study On Effective Methods Of Improving College Students’ Critical Thinking In College English Teaching

With the acceleration of globalization，the competition for the international talents is increasinglyfierce. Western countries are paying much more attention to the cultivation of the students’ CT. In theUnited States, CT has been listed as one of the important goals of higher education, infiltrated intothe interdisciplinary teaching as well. In addition, there have been quite a few instruments for theassessment of CT, whereby the quality-oriented education came into practice in the United States. InChina, we have realized the significance of the CT in higher education. However, the currentsituation of the college students’ CT is not satisfactory, especially in College English teaching，whichhas been focusing on imparting knowledge, ignoring the cultivation of CT, as a consequence of theexam-oriented education in China. After several rounds of College English teaching reforms, moreand more researches have been conducted regarding the most important goals in College Englishteaching. As is well known that China’s Ministry of Education has put the goal of the cultivation ofcollege students’ CT into The College English Curriculum Requirements.On the basis of ’input-based, output-driven’ Hypothesis, this empirical study, by performingpublic speaking with reflective journals and debating, combined with the content in the CollegeEnglish textbooks makes an attempt to find a way that effectively facilitates CT among collegestudents in College English classes, making the most of the College English classes, therebyimproving the efficiency of college English teaching.This empirical study employs the instruments of tests and written interviews.50freshmen ofnon-English majors from a key University in Qingdao participate in the study, whose CollegeEnglish learning begins with Grade3. The following questions are included in the study：1. Do the non-English major students in this university have any idea of CT? Compared to anaggregate sample of4-year college comparative sample, what is the overall score of the students’ CTskills in this university?2. After a semester’s ’immersion approach’ of CT teaching in College English class, are there anyimprovements in the students’ CT skills? If there are, what are they?3. Does the ’immersion approach’ of CT teaching in College English class have any influences onthe students’ English academic achievements? If there are, what are they? 4. Does the ’immersion approach’ of CT teaching in College English class have any influences onthe students’ attitudes toward English learning? If there are, what are they?The main findings of the study are as follows:1. The non-English major students in this university have little knowledge of CT. Compared to anaggregate sample of4-year college comparative sample, the overall score of the students’ CT skills inthis university is above average.2. After a semester’s ’immersion approach’ of CT teaching in College English class, theexperimental group’s CT skills have been improved to a large extent including, the overallperformance and the skills of analysis, inference, evaluation and deduction; Among the subjects,those on the debate group have improved their CT skills significantly in not only overallperformance, but also in the skills of analysis, inference, evaluation, induction and deduction; thoseon the group of public speaking with reflective journals have the improvements in only overallperformance and the skill of analysis. While there are no improvements in the control group’s CTskills, instead, there are slight declines in the control group’s CT skills, with a significant decline inthe skill of inference.3. Adding the ’immersion approach’ of CT teaching to College English class does not havesignificant influences on the students’ English academic achievements.4. Adding the ’immersion approach’ of CT teaching to College English class does have a greatinfluence on the students’ English learning, which can help them form the positive attitude towardEnglish learning and improve the overall English competence.The findings of the study show that cultivating the students CT in College English class by’immersion approach’ of CT teaching can effectively promote the students’ input motive due to therequirements of the output in class, which can help the students to learn actively instead of learningpassively. This teaching practice can not only improve the students’ CT skills, but can also improvetheir learning habits and increasing learning efficiency, thereby change the situation of ’timeconsuming with low efficiency’ in College English teaching as well as the situation of the students’’high scores but low qualities’.