| The cultivation of critical thinking(CT)is considered one of the goals of foreign language education.However,in the field of EFL teaching,previous studies have focused on combining CT with reading or writing classes,overlooking empirical evidence for fostering students' CT in English audio-visual-oral courses.Herein,two studies were conducted to investigate the effects of the CT-oriented instructional mode on students' CT and course achievement.Study 1 adopted the immersion approach to integrating CT into the course.The results show that compared to the traditional instruction method,which also plays a role in developing students' CT,the immersion-based instruction method is more effective in enhancing students' overall CT disposition,especially in the subscale of truth-seeking and open-mindedness.Besides,the immersion-based instruction has significantly promoted students' listening proficiency.Following Study 1,the second study was carried out via the infusion approach.According to the results of Study 2,the infusion method of integrating CT into the course has positive impacts on students' CT,especially on the subscale of open-mindedness,analyticity and inquisitiveness.And it is also demonstrated that the infusion-based instruction way is more efficient than the traditional one in improving students' listening and speaking levels.Taken together,this research proposes that both the immersion-based and infusion-based instruction ways are more effective than the traditional one.Furthermore,compared with the immersion method,the infusion approach has more obvious effects on developing students' analyticity,inquisitiveness and speaking ability.The findings encourage English teachers to change their traditional instructional mode and use the infusion approach to better integrate CT into course content.From the explicit guidance on specific CT skills,students can benefit a lot in developing their ability to deal with problems and make sound decisions. |
PDF Full Text Request