A Study On The Correlation Between Critical Thinking And English Speech Proficiency Of English Majors

Critical thinking, namely creative thinking, plays a vital role in the cultivation of creative talents. Since1930s, researches abroad on critical thinking had been undertaken, the theory and practice of which has been continuously improved. However, domestic researches emerged merely in recent years, and they are mainly concentrated in the fields of psychology, logic, and nursing. Although the phenomenon of English majors’extreme scarcity of critical thinking has attracted some scholars’attention, relevant empirical studies are rather rare, especially those on the relationship between critical thinking and other English skills. There is only few researches concern on the correlation between critical thinking and English speech proficiency.This thesis aims to explore the relationship between critical thinking and English speech proficiency and answer whether there is any correlation between them, how they correlate with each other; whether there is any significant difference in English speech proficiency among students of different levels of critical thinking and whether there is any significant difference in the level of critical thinking among students of different English speech proficiency.The samples of this study are61junior English majors from English language and literature class and English petroleum science and technology class in Southwest Petroleum University. The current studies adopted the quantitative and qualitative methods. The first phase is a quantitative research aiming at revealing the relationship between critical thinking and the students’English speech proficiency. And it also intends to answer which component has the greatest correlation and contribution to English speech proficiency among the two dimensions of critical thinking:critical thinking dispositions and critical thinking skills. The second phase analyzes the qualitative data to interpret and testify quantitative study in phase one.Findings of the study are as follows:1) the critical thinking of English majors is rather weak as a whole, not only in the dimension of critical thinking dispositions but also in the dimension of critical thinking skills. As for the seven components of critical thinking dispositions, participants are comparatively strongest in Maturity while weakest in Systematicity.2) There is a significant positive correlation between critical thinking and English speech proficiency. Students with higher level of critical thinking have significantly higher English speech proficiency than those with lower level of critical thinking and vice versa. Total scores of critical thinking can predict 34.4%of students’ English speech proficiency. The cause of the difference in students’ critical thinking ability and the teaching proposals for improving their English speech proficiency are discussed based on the above research results.