An Empirical Research Of The Application And Cultivation Of Critical Thinking In English Major’s Classroom Questioning

With the advance of globalization and innovation of education concept, comprehending and fostering critical thinking abilities have been valued in more and more fields. As early as in1990s, critical thinking has become the main target of U.S. government and many American educational institutions have been attaching more and more importance to critical thinking among school students. In fact, it is one of the core skills in the goals of education among western countries; critical thinking covers several abilities, such as analyzing, judging, reasoning, evaluation and examination. Unfortunately in China; there have been very few people who take up the research of critical thinking; educators begin to discuss the meaning of critical thinking and put forward the importance of relationship between critical thinking and innovation ability. But, it is almost blank to systematic research in the field of critical thinking, especially in the field of English teaching. Critical thinking is playing a more and more important role in modem information era, creating a democratic society and pushing forward the reform of foreign language teaching and learning as well as English learning. The current situation of lacking critical thinking among Chinese students has been educators’ common concern subject. Strengthening the cultivation of critical thinking has become an important teaching goal.Therefore, on the basis of literature review of critical thinking theories and getting support from both the critical theories and classroom teaching theories, especially questioning theories, this paper attempts to carry out an experimental research into the fostering of critical thinking in the process of college school English classroom questioning through analyzing shortcomings of classroom questioning, and then summarize practice conclusion and teaching suggestions.Based on the analysis of the present situation of classroom teaching, this paper puts forward the model of classroom questioning based on critical thinking. The model of CT in asking question is:students ask—teachers induct—teachers ask—lass discussion—teachers enlighten—students answer—teachers comment—students conclude. When practicing this model in experiment, this paper also provides detailed suggestions to the steps of planning questions, practicing questions, wait time, feedback, and follow-up questions in classroom questioning.Specifically speaking, this paper contents six parts. Part One, it puts forward background and significance of this research. This paper is a probe into the fostering of critical thinking in college school English classroom questioning. Part Two, this paper has done a literature review on the critical thinking theories and questioning theories in home and abroad. Part Three, combining language teaching theories, this paper analyzes the connotation of critical thinking in the aspects of cognitive development, thinking ability and culture, which provides theories foundation for the following research. At the same time, through taking notes of classroom observation, this paper analyzes the shortcomings of current situation in the process of the college classroom teaching questions:less interactions between teachers and students; simple forms of questions and too short wait-time, etc. these shortcomings provide data for the further experimental research and construct the model of classroom questioning on the basis of critical thinking. Part Four, this paper tires to employs a qualitative methodology—case studies. This Paper random choose two English major classes of grade one in college school, one is taught in traditional questioning way, while the other is taught in questioning based on critical thinking. This paper also brings out some questioning strategies to design and practice questions in class teaching. Handling proper in the procedure of questioning, teachers may guarantee great teaching efforts. The results prove the experimental hypothesis that Critical thinking used in English classroom questioning is benefit to improve students’ performance and ability. Data about school performance and fostering of critical thinking are collected through the tests and questionnaire required for students to write. These data are carefully evaluated and assessed based on the critical thinking assessing tools and are also given the qualitative analysis. And these analyses suggest the result of the study that critical thinking can be fostered in college school English classroom questioning. The results enforce the importance of questioning again in classroom. Refined questions play an important role in inspiring students’ thinking, especially critical thinking. This part also discusses problems in practice, such as the improvement of teachers’critical ability, the limitation of teaching contents and class time. Part Five, this paper gives some suggestions to above problems in practice and expresses implication of the experimental research. And in Part Six, it is the conclusion of this paper:fostering students’ critical abilities should be one of main aims of education. Classroom questioning on the basis of critical thinking is effective way to foster students’ thinking abilities, because thinking cannot exist without questioning.