Critical Thinking Development In English Writing For College Non-english Majors

In the global economy,the competition among the talents is fierce and mastering the practical application ability of English language can better improve the international competitive ability of talents in our country.English writing can test the comprehensive ability of using English.Due to examination-oriented education for a long time,the English writing of college students lacks CT(Critical Thinking)and creativity,and the content is dull.It is urgent to cultivate students' CT.More and more experts and scholars have been interested in CT study.There are 8979 studies in CNKI(China National Knowledge Infrastructure): 103 ones related to English writing;49 ones related to college English writing,of which,the majority of the study subjects are English majors and only few researches study non-English majors especially the students in vocational universities.There are almost 20 vocational universities in Shaanxi which play a vital part in 467 vocational universities of 34 provinces.According to survey,in-depth interview and teaching practice,the students lacking CT in vocational university has been found.Wen Qiufang found that English Majors' CT ability was significantly stronger than other students of liberal arts who improved themselves a lot during the experiment.So,it is of great practical significance to conduct non-English majors' CT in English writing in vocational university of Shaanxi.The research questions are the three following ones: first,what is the current situation of non-English majors' CT ability in vocational university of Shaanxi? How is their writing proficiency? Second,what is the relation between CT ability and vocational college non-English majors' English writing? Third,is there any advancement of Group A after a semester's interventional CT teaching in English writing class? How was Group B? Is there any enlightenment for the English writing teaching in vocational universities? Firstly,to get a whole acquaintance of non-English majors' CT ability and English writing proficiency,the present study adopted CCTDI-CV(California Critical Thinking Dispositions Inventory-Chinese Version)(Wu Hongzhi,2010)and CCTST(California Critical Thinking Skills Test)(Wu Hongzhi,2010)to test and interview 200(100 males&100 females) non-English majors of Grade 2 in one vocational university who were selected randomly.After that 70 students were selected at random to be divided into Group A and Group B.The former received a semester's CT training and the latter received traditional writing teaching.This research lasted for 15 weeks.In pre-test and post-test,CCTDI and CCTST were used to test CT of two groups and two English writing tasks with similar level were used to test their English proficiency at the same time.After the experiment,some subjects being selected randomly to accept the interview and expressed the feeling of receiving intervention to demonstrate their current state and problems of CT.At last,SPSS 24.0 was adopted to analyze the CT change of two groups and the correlation between CT and writing proficiency.The study finds that the current situation of non-English majors' CT ability and writing proficiency in vocational university of Shaanxi is not satisfactory and their logic is weak;positive correlation between CT ability and vocational college non-English students' English writing has been found;the improvement of CT dispositions and skills effects English writing positively;there is some advancement in Group A after a semester's interventional CT teaching.It is concluded that CT teaching model should be adopted in English writing to foster students' CT and English writing.