Study On The Current Status Of College English Teachers' Critical Thinking Disposition

With the rapid development of the times,human society has entered the era of knowledge explosion.Critical thinking as a vital thinking way is able to help modern individuals to distinguish goodness and evils when they are overwhelmed by tremendous information.And consisting of critical thinking disposition and skill,critical thinking is also regarded as the core of innovation ability and the typical feature of innovative talent.Moreover,the critical thinking disposition is a kind of psychological state and a subjective intension of critical thinking as well as the motivation and impetus of critical thinking activity,which affects the overall thinking procedure efficiency.Furthermore,college English course is the core public course of college education,which has the most course hours and students,so that the college English teachers shoulder dramatic pressure due to the overburdened teaching assignments.Thus the teachers' critical thinking dispositions not only affect their own career developments,but also influence the students' thinking behaviors.However,there are few researches of college English teachers' critical thinking disposition,which has been ignored to some extent.Therefore,this research on the status quo of college English teachers' critical disposition has great significance.This paper presents literature review from four facets including relative concepts of critical thinking,teachers' critical thinking disposition and college English teachers' critical thinking disposition.After the literature review,quantitative method is constructed with distributing questionnaires among 11 universities including Chongqing University,Southwest University of Political Science&Law,Yunnan University,Guangxi University of Finance and Economics,Southwest Petroleum University and so on,which investigates the status quo of critical thinking disposition of 178 college English teachers.Then qualitative method is applied by interviewing 13 English teachers,which verifies the results of the questionnaire as well as summarizing the causes of differences among different teachers in critical thinking disposition.Research results suggest that the current status of college English teachers' critical thinking disposition is positive.Among the four scales,openness gets the strongest while the thinking of reflection,curiosity,system and analysis follow.Then differences really exist among teachers who are in different ages,teaching experiences,degrees,professional titles and schools: Firstly,in different ages and teaching experiences,teachers' critical thinking disposition presents periodical characteristics.Secondly,the teachers who are in higher professional tiles,degrees and schools achieve stronger disposition.Moreover,causes of these differences are concerned with their thinking patterns,knowledge reserves,life experiences,teaching practices,research abilities,competitive awareness,self-esteems,teaching trainings and studying atmospheres.Based on the results,five suggestions are provided: improving the thinking of reflection,curiosity,system and analysis;formulating periodic training methods;encouraging promotion;enhancing degree and creating better developing environment.