An Investigation On The Teaching Behavior Of Senior High School English Teachers To Cultivate Students’ Critical Thinking Disposition

Critical thinking disposition is the motivation of critical thinking action,the intrinsic prerequisite of action,and the prerequisite for students to acquire critical thinking.For students,critical thinking can enable them to obtain useful information in the face of a large amount of information,and enable them to think independently,make correct judgments according to the results of their own thinking,and finally conclude and summarize based on the judgments.For teachers,they should have the quality of critical thinking and develop the habit of critical thinking to cultivate the quality of critical thinking of students.The cultivation of innovative talents requires teachers and other educators to play a vital role in cultivating students’ critical thinking and independent judgment ability to get rid of blind obedience.The cultivation of critical thinking by teachers in English teaching can not only improve students’ English subject ability but also cultivate their advanced thinking ability to achieve the unity of teaching and education.In recent years,the researches on critical thinking and critical thinking disposition mainly focuses on high school students and college students,and less on teachers;Then,there are more studies on critical thinking skills at home and abroad,but less on critical thinking disposition.Based on this,this study aims to investigate high school English teachers’ teaching behavior of cultivating students’ critical thinking disposition,analyzes the differences of teachers’ critical thinking disposition under different demographic variables,and explores other potential factors that may produce differences,so as to improve the thinking quality and thinking skills of teachers and promote the cultivation of students’ critical thinking and innovative thinking.Based on this,the following questions are proposed:(1)What is the current situation of teaching behavior of high school English teachers to cultivate students’ critical thinking disposition?(2)Does the teaching behavior of teachers to cultivate students’ critical thinking disposition differ under different demographics(educational,age and teaching ages)?If so,what are the differences?(3)What other possible factors may affect the teaching behavior of high school teachers to cultivate students’ critical thinking disposition?In this study,the methods of questionnaire,classroom observation and interview were used to investigate the teaching behaviors of high school English teachers to cultivate students’ critical thinking disposition,and to explore other possible factors affecting teachers’ teaching behaviors.The objects of this study were 72 English teachers from two high schools in Yakeshi City.All 72 teachers participated in the questionnaire survey,among which 10 English teachers were observed in class,and 8 English teachers were interviewed.After collecting data and information,SPSS22.0 was used for data analysis.The research shows that the teaching behavior of cultivating students’ critical thinking disposition is often unbalanced and cannot achieve balanced development,whether in each sub-item behavior or dimension level;English teachers of different educational backgrounds and ages have significant differences in the teaching behavior of cultivating students’ critical thinking disposition,while English teachers of different teaching ages do not show significant differences in the teaching behavior of cultivating students’ critical thinking disposition.Through the interview,the author also finds that the traditional cultural factors,personal factors,family life and educational system have influenced the teaching behavior of high school English teachers to cultivate students’ critical thinking disposition to different degrees.At the end of this paper,the author elaborates the significance of this study in stimulating and improving the teaching behavior of English teachers to cultivate students’ critical thinking disposition.Meanwhile,the author also puts forward the shortcomings of this experiment and suggestions and prospects for future research.