Chapter 1 Introduction
1.1 Background of the Present Study
Critical thinking is a kind of thinking ability, aiming at enhancing persons’awareness of criticism, reflection, openness and independence. Since the early 20thcentury, the improvement of critical thinking competence has been a hot topic in thereform of western higher education. During the past 20 years, western countrieshave focused more on college students’ critical thinking research. Their studies canbe roughly divided into 3 categories: definitions and related theories of criticalthinking; assessing instruments; and critical thinking training methods. As such, asystematic and scientific research system on critical thinking has been formed inwestern country.China has also highlighted the significance of critical thinking in educationin recent years. As researches move along, many scholars point out that criticalthinking is best developed as it is applied into specific knowledge and experience,that is, embedded within a subject such as reading, writing, science, nursery ratherthan taught as an independent set of skills. Therefore many scholars engaged inEnglish education wonder that how critical thinking training can be integrated intoEFL because traditional English instruction model merely attaches emphasis onlanguage skills rather than thinking skills.
……………
1.2 Significance of the Present Study
Only with reflective spirit can people seek the truth and to discover and inventnew things. In western schools, English teaching methodologies, English textbooksas well as study questions are all designed around thinking training which has beenset the main goals of EFL. Similarly, it is also very important to foster students’critical thinking ability in China. One vital focus of English education should be thedevelopment of students’ capabilities to analyze and synthesize, to abstract andsummarize, in a word, to develop their own cognitions rather than to promote scoresin English tests.This research not only points out the significance of the cultivation of criticalthinking in English education but also tries to make an empirical research concerning developing English majors’ critical thinking in English reading courses.The attempt seeks to enrich English instruction models and strengthen teachers’ andstudents’ meta-cognitive awareness of how they pursue and disseminate knowledge.Therefore, the research not only fills up a gap in empirical studies on this topic butalso provides more suggestions for further studies.
…………..
Chapter 2 Literature Review
2.1 Definitions of Basic Concepts
Perhaps one of the greatest debates on the study of critical thinking is toidentify a unified definition of critical thinking. Different disciplines view criticalthinking differently, leading to disagreements on its definition. A variety of views,basically, can be distributed into two main fields, namely, philosophy and cognitivepsychology. From this two perspectives, we can also see the development of criticalthinking definitions. In philosophy, critical thinking is a conception while incognitive psychology, it is an experience and a practice of education.To explore the origin of critical thinking, we can find that the intellectual rootsof critical thinking can be traced back to Greek ，英语论文题目，英语论文范文
|
