A Study On Pre-service English Teachers’ Developing Beliefs About Cultivating Students’ Critical Thinking Ability

In the current information era where technological advance and cultural exchange develop very rapidly,the cultivation of critical thinking ability is taken as an indispensable part of English language education.Therefore,more and more researchers begin to pay attention to how to cultivate students’ critical thinking ability in English teaching.However,most of the previous studies mainly focused on aspects like the concept of CT,its components and cultivation strategies,while research on relevant teaching beliefs is neglected.For instance,there are few studies on the formation and development of pre-service English teachers’ beliefs about cultivating students’ critical thinking ability.Since teachers’ teaching practice is,to some extent,influenced by their teaching beliefs and their personal learning experiences are deemed as closely related to the formation of such beliefs.Thus,the investigation of English teachers’ beliefs about the cultivation of students’ critical thinking ability is of great significance in the phase of pre-service education.The present study attempted to explore the following three questions:1.Before the practicum,what beliefs do pre-service English teachers hold about the cultivation of students’ critical thinking ability?2.After the practicum,are there any changes in such beliefs of pre-service English teachers?3.What are the perceived reasons for changes in pre-service English teachers’ beliefs about cultivating students’ critical thinking ability?To answer the above questions,this study employed a mixed research method which combined quantitative and qualitative approaches and selected 150 senior college students majoring in English education at a normal university located in central China as the participants to administer questionnaire survey to them before and after the practicum respectively.Besides,according to the general teacher beliefs level shown in the first-round questionnaire,the researcher chose 4 participants to have semi-structured interview with them both before and after the practicum and observed their teaching videos recorded during the practicum.The researcher used SPSS to do descriptive analysis and paired-samples t test on the collected data and designed interview protocols based on the results of questionnaire and observation of participants’teaching videos to have semi-structured interviews with them,and then thematic analysis method was used by the researcher to analyze the transcribed text of interviews.The study yields the following findings:1.Pre-service English teachers attach importance to the cultivation of critical thinking ability,and before the teaching practicum,they had some correct knowledge of critical thinking and its cultivation,but their conception of it was a little vague and incomplete.For instance,most of them showed a lack of very clear and adequate perception of what constitutes critical thinking ability and its specific teaching strategies.2.After the practicum,pre-service English teachers have gained clearer conception of the concept of critical thinking and its teaching,and this filed experience has also facilitated the reconstruction and development of such beliefs.3.The perceived reasons for changes in pre-service English teachers’ beliefs about cultivating students’ critical thinking ability mainly include teaching modelling of school mentor teachers,students’ learning participation and feedback and so on.4.Due to external factors such as pressure of exam-oriented education,insufficient instruction of critical thinking pedagogies and so on,pre-service English teachers could not fully implement their teaching beliefs.