A Study Of The Effect Of Task-based College English Writing Teaching On Private College Students' Cognitive Ability Of Critical Thinking

Critical thinking is the basis of creative ability,so cultivating innovative talents is an important goal of quality education.In July 2010,the Ministry of Education promulgated the "National Long-term Education Reform and Development Plan(2010-2020)”,clearly states that the construction of an innovative country need to cultivate talents with innovative spirit and ability to solve practical problems.So it is of great practical significance to cultivate students' critical thinking.With the continuous deepening of the reform of the national education system,the development environment of private colleges is becoming more and more favorable.A large number of students choose private colleges for further study.Therefore,it is necessary to adopt appropriate teaching methods to improve their interest in English learning and to develop their cognitive ability of critical thinking.Scholars at home and abroad have done a lot of research on the task-based teaching from theory to practice,and have made abundant achievements.However,few teachers in private colleges use the task-based teaching to cultivate students' cognitive ability of critical thinking from the perspective of English Writing.Based on the cognitive development theory of Piaget and Output Hypothesis Theory of Swain,this study took 57 students in the class of machinery manufacturing as the research object.A questionnaire survey,English writing pre-test and post-test,interview,classroom observation and teacher reflection were carried out.The study focuses on two research questions:1.What is the present situation of private college students' cognitive ability of critical thinking?2.What is the effect of task-based English writing teaching on students' cognitive ability of critical thinking?The results show that private college students' cognitive ability of critical thinking was generally below the average,lacking the abilities of analysis,evaluation,inference,explanation and self-regulation.Task-based teaching had a positive effect on students'cognitive ability of critical thinking.The teacher designed pre-task,while-task,and post-task activities in English writing class,which improve students' cognitive ability of critical thinking,help them clearly understand the writing purpose,discover the writing methods and make the writing perfect.There are still some limitations in this study.For example,the time of the experiment is short and the research scope is small with ignorance of the effect of gender factor on cognitive ability of critical thinking during task-based teaching.Further study can focus on exploring teachers' cognitive ability of critical thinking,which may have some effects on students' performance.