A Study On Finalists' Critical Thinking In "FLTRP Cup" And "21^stCentury·Coca-Cola Cup" National English Speaking Competition

Critical thinking is an essential part for university students to tackle problems.More and more educators view cultivating students' critical thinking as one of the higher education's objects.Previous studies mostly focused on the definition of critical thinking,the assessment of students' critical thinking and the improvement of student's critical thinking by different teaching methods.Therefore,little has done on university students' critical thinking from the perspective of English public speaking contest,especially the question-to-answer session.Basing on this research situation,this study takes Wen's Level Model as the theoretical basis and focuses on the following two questions:1.What are the critical thinking features of 18 finalists in terms of Wen's five standards(clarity,flexibility,logicality,profundity and relevance)in“FLTRP Cup”and "21st Century· Coca-Cola Cup" National English Speaking Competition?2.Are there any changes of finalists' critical thinking features during the six yearly competitions in terms of Wen's five standards?And what are the specific changes?The current study takes ELAN as a research tool for qualitative analysis of finalists' critical thinking presented in question-to-answer section of 18 video clips in"FLTRP Cup" from 2015 to 2016 and 17th to 20th "21st century · Coca-Cola Cup"National English Speaking Competition.By single case analysis and cross-year comparison,the findings are presented as follows:1.The 18 speakers all displayed their critical thinking in the process of answering questions to some extent.Most speakers are over 90 seconds for critical thinking in their 3-5 minutes question-to-answer section.And most speakers are good at clarity and relevance of critical thinking.The weakest part for 18 speakers is profundity in the whole section.2.Through cross-year comparison,critical thinking of six groups of speakers were becoming better generally,especially in clarity and relevance.For most speakers,flexibility of their critical thinking needs to be improved.Profundity is the weakest part for almost every group and need to be improved greatly.Basing on above findings of this study,two suggestions are put forward for students about cultivating critical thinking from studying and practicing aspects.Besides,new educational policies should be carried out to assist schools and teachers in cultivating students' critical thinking.