The Effect of CBLL on Improving Students' Dispositions towards Critical Thinking

DOI

10.2991/msie-16.2016.91How to use a DOI?

Keywords

CBLL; Critical thinking disposition; Language learning.

Abstract

It is widely accepted that thinking is closely related to language and that the development of thinking can occur in the process of language learning. Therefore it becomes one of researchers' top concerns to cultivate a robust disposition towards critical thinking among students. This study aims to explore the impacts of CBLL (Content-based language learning) on EFL learners' dispositions towards critical thinking. There are two groups of participants in the current research: an experimental group of 38 students and a control group of 41 students. Both of the two groups are students from class A in which learners were enrolled with better English test records. They were then randomly divided into two groups. In the experimental group, English learning was instructed based on the principles of CBLL. While in the control group, English was taught to the subjects in the regular way. CTDI-CV (Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory-Chinese Version) was the instrument to measure the development of the subjects' disposition towards critical thinking. After one academic year, the researcher analyzed the collected data from the two rounds of questionnaires by independent samples t-test and paired samples t-test. It is revealed that EFL learners in the CBLL class perform positive development in their dispositions towards critical thinking. They show significant improvement in the aspects of dispositions as truth seeking, systematicity and overall tendency. The result signifies that CBLL can effectively help develop students' critical thinking disposition. The justifications for the result are discussed in the last parts of the paper.

Copyright

© 2016, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

Download article (PDF)

TY  - CONF
AU  - Liya Liu
PY  - 2016/10
DA  - 2016/10
TI  - The Effect of CBLL on Improving Students' Dispositions towards Critical Thinking
BT  - Proceedings of the 2016 International Conference on Management Science and Innovative Education
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 404
EP  - 409
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/msie-16.2016.91
DO  - 10.2991/msie-16.2016.91
ID  - Liu2016/10
ER  -