Abstract
According to the final test results of writing courses, it is indicated that the essay writing process has been still a radical challenge among HUFI English-major students. This paper illustrates a preliminary study in which English-major students’ perceptions about how critical thinking skills impact their process of writing short essays is investigated. To verify the issue, survey research and classroom observations were planned and conducted. A set of questionnaires was first handed out to 120 students in the Writing 2 course (Essay Writing) to explore students’ insights on the importance of critical thinking in their writing, and then six sections of students’ in-class writing were observed to identify both benefits and challenges of applying critical thinking skills to the essay writing task. The findings indicated that critical thinking plays a crucial role in enhancing students’ ability to plan and capacity to write essays as well as minimizing weaknesses in students’ essay writing process.
Highlights
1 These days' demands of second language learners have made traditional forms of language instructions inadequate for satisfying learners’ desire for proficiency in communication
The findings indicated that critical thinking plays a crucial role in enhancing students’ ability to plan and capacity to write essays as well as minimizing weaknesses in students’ essay writing process
From the figures in the table, it can be said that teaching writing essays with critical thinking activities is welcomed by most of the students
Summary
The method of communicative language teaching was developed, in which the building blocks of task-based instruction were offered. Critical thinking was considered one of the indispensable parts of those blocks, one prerequisite skill in higher education (McMillan, 1987). It aims to promote students’ success in the modern area and is linked to problem-solving ability. Critical thinking tasks were well-known as one of the practicable strategies for improving learners’ skills, such as writing (Bacha, 2010). The ability to think critically has certainly been an expected component among English language teachers and learners. Applying critical thinking is still a real challenge in English as a foreign language classroom
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