The Cultivation of Critical Thinking in English Elective Course of Language & Culture

Yingchun Peng

【Abstract】From the practical need of current college English elective course construction and on the basis of the theory of critical thinking， this article put forward a series of constructive discussion， targeting on college English elective course in language & culture courses in the autonomous learning ability， teaching model design and curriculum evaluation method.

【Key words】College English； Language & Culture Electives； Critical Thinking

In the past few years， public English teaching in colleges and universities have generally added electives. With the deepening of the English elective course construction， how to carry out scientific and standardized language & culture teaching and help students develop their critical thinking through targeted courses design has become a topic worthy of all college English teachers' thinking.

I. The cultivation of autonomous learning and critical thinking in cultural elective courses

The characteristics of the thinking process is “hidden” and “automation”， people are often not aware of which their thinking is how to think or what is your way of thinking tendency. In the stage of the elective course teaching English， teachers should correctly understand their role in the culture elective courses of “helper” to give up in the classroom， the “hero” status， but only for the students to plan the scope and direction of learning， to act as a go-between role of knowledge， using the cultural courses of interest， resonate with students or curiosity， to build a search through independent and digest the information platform for the students.At the same time， teachers should have scientifically mobilized students “plan， choice， organization and evaluation of learning content” of the initiative， made them fully aware of their own thinking to the power and set up to cultivate their critical thinking of the spirit of self-confidence.

II. Design of teaching mode and cultivation of critical thinking skills in the cultural elective courses

Teaching mode mainly includes two aspects： first， the design of the teaching content； Second， the design of teaching activities. “Requirements” advises students to make full use of campus network and Internet network resources for learning. Teachers should take advantage of the reasonable design of teaching content and teaching activities， for scientific training of the students' critical thinking skills. In today's rapid development in social network consulting， students can easily search through the network to the rich but a bit of confused. Elective courses teachers can elaborate design teaching contents and topic of discussion for students； Suggest reasonable online search keyword or topic； Or recommend some excellent original English site or links， and accordingly arrange related tasks such as classroom activities， require students to collect the original English print materials for group discussion or To condense it into simple PPT file. In the process， students will naturally find Kurfiss said“research” skills， to collect the data“choose”and“effective integration”.

III. Teaching evaluation mode and the cultivation of critical thinking skills in the elective course of language & culture

suggest teachers to adopt a “process assessment”， which is arranged in the top two and “student assessment” between each other is also the most effective training and test students' critical thinking. In view of this initiative， teachers can base on meta cognition theory， arouse students“self-monitoring” and “reflection” cognitive means， actively through the question， or anti inference or the correction attitude to evaluate themselves and other students point of view. The specific approach is： to design a set of“comprehensive， objective， scientific and accurate evaluation standard”but can strong operation， let the students fully understand the evaluation and should go to the students themselves and from those aspects through comparison. the students gradually familiar with the composition of the lead to “classroom” success factors， and thus more likely to find themselves lack of learning strategies， and make “trade-off” and improve in a timely manner.

In language & culture elective course， College English teachers should consciously help students improve their critical thinking spirit through subjective emotional mobilization； cultivate the critical thinking skills intensively by designing objective teaching methods and means of evaluation. Ultimately the students can actively mobilize their critical thinking skills and promote critical thinking in the establishment of a stable system.

References：

[1]刘儒德.论批判性思维的意义与内涵[J].高等师范教育研究，2000.

[2]王祥兵，刘晶.培养英语专业学生批判性思维能力的探索[J].高等教育研究学报，2008.

[3]朱新称.大学生批判性思维培养：意义与策略[J].华南师范大学学报（社会科学版），2006.

[4]Alec，Fisher.Critical Thinking： An Introduction[M].Cambridge University Press，2001.

作者简介：彭迎春（1982-），女，湖南娄底人，江西外语外贸职业学院讲师，硕士，研究方向：英语。