ERIC Number: EJ1235026
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2019
Pages: 9
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1916-4742
EISSN: N/A
A Comparative Study of Critical Thinking Skills between English and Japanese Majors in a Normal University
Zhou, Fenglin; Lin, Yuewu
English Language Teaching, v12 n12 p30-38 2019
Critical thinking is one of the core objectives of talent training in higher education. Meanwhile, the cultivation of critical thinking skills in foreign language teaching has become more and more urgent, and it has also been written into the national standards for the training of foreign language talents. A good critical thinking includes both a skill dimension (Critical Thinking Skills) and a disposition dimension (Critical Thinking Dispositions). Critical Thinking Skills include interpretation, analysis, evaluation, inference, explanation and self-regulation. This study intends to explore the current situation of the critical thinking skills of undergraduates in foreign language majors (English and Japanese) in a Normal University, and then attempts to find out the similarities and differences in critical thinking skills between English majors and Japanese majors after years of study at college. The results show that a clear difference exists between English majors and Japanese majors in overall critical thinking skills. In particular, English majors are superior to Japanese majors. Another finding is that there are also differences between the two majors in the three core sub-skills of critical thinking skills, analysis, evaluation and inference.
Descriptors: Critical Thinking, Talent, Thinking Skills, National Standards, Second Language Learning, Second Language Instruction, English (Second Language), Japanese, Foreign Countries, Metacognition, Undergraduate Students, Majors (Students), Universities, Inferences, Comparative Analysis
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Japan
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A