Correlation Between Students’ Critical Thinking Disposition And English Writing Proficiency In A Senior High School

Writing is a thinking activity with high intensity.Critical thinking ability is the most important ability in human thinking ability,and it is closely related to writing.Critical thinking ability is consist of critical thinking skill and critical thinking disposition.Critical thinking disposition is the driving force of critical thinking skill and the psychological basis for the effective use of critical thinking skill,which is closely related to senior high school students’ English writing.Therefore,this research is devoted to exploring the correlation between critical thinking dispositions and English writing proficiency of senior high school students,exploring ways to improve critical thinking disposition and English writing proficiency so as to provide enlightenment and proposals on English writing teaching for senior high school English teachers.Based on the Facione’s critical thinking theory and Flower & Hayes’ writing cognitive process theory,this thesis chooses 99 students in the third grade of a senior high school as the research subjects,adopts Peng Meici’s Chinese Version of Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory and English argumentative writing test paper to respectively measure students’ CTD and English writing proficiency.The compositions are evaluated according to the English Writing Scoring Standard of the College Entrance Examination and Wen Qiufang’s Argumentative Writing Scoring Standards to make a quantitative rating and qualitative analysis so as to explore the correlation between CTD and writing proficiency.The thesis intends to explore:1.What is the current situation of senior high school students’ critical thinking disposition in the research?2.Is there any correlation between critical thinking disposition and senior high school students’ English writing proficiency?3.What impacts does critical thinking disposition exert on senior high school students’ English writing proficiency?Based on the analysis of critical thinking disposition inventory and writing test paper,the findings of this research are as follows:First,the overall CTD of senior high school students is at a moderate level,and a few students show obvious strong or weak levels.Secondly,there is a significant positive correlation between senior high school students’ CTD and their English writing proficiency.Lastly,the qualitative research on the compositions shows that the CTD exerts a significant influence on senior high school students’ compositions and the influence is concentrated on the four aspects of writing: relevance,explicitness,coherence and sufficiency.Based on the above findings,this research puts forward more practical suggestions on improving the English writing proficiency of senior high school students from the perspective of English teachers.Teachers should change the writing teaching contents,writing teaching methods and evaluation methods of composition to cultivate students’ CTD and improve their writing level.It is hoped that teaching suggestions can bring some enlightenment for improving senior high school English writing proficiency and provide some reference value for further researches.