Critical thinking ability is the core skill of higher education. How to train the non-English major students＇ critical thinking ability in the English writing instruction plays an important role in the compound perso...Critical thinking ability is the core skill of higher education. How to train the non-English major students＇ critical thinking ability in the English writing instruction plays an important role in the compound personnel training. In this paper, the reading-discussion-writing approach which guarantees the innovative construction of writing is proposed to train college students＇ critical thinking ability, and specific suggestions on the practice are articulated such as designing diversified listening and speaking lead-in activities to activate or supplement the relative notion and background knowledge, using variety of challenging reading-discussion-writing tasks, and conducting mutual evaluation, etc., to let students deeply understand the text through discussion and promote their language competence and writing ability as well as their reflective thinking ability.展开更多
The study, conducted in the academic year 2008, explores the potential differences in the use of a dictionary in support of a standard writing task by two student groups at two different proficiency levels. Fifty seve...The study, conducted in the academic year 2008, explores the potential differences in the use of a dictionary in support of a standard writing task by two student groups at two different proficiency levels. Fifty seven students working on a real classroom assignment were observed; in order to make sure that the subjects behaved as they normally would, they had not been informed that their dictionary behavior was to be observed. The study which shows that the need for a dictionary is smaller in the case of more advanced students may be of interest to those foreign language teachers who fear that giving a student an unlimited access to a dictionary may hamper the development of his expressive abilities. In turn, a marked preference on the part of more advanced students for an L I-L2, paralleled by a sustained interest in information categories typically placed in foreign learner＇s dictionaries suggests that advanced language learners writing in English would probably opt for a lexicographic product combining the best of both dictionary types： an LI-L2 and an MLD.展开更多
文摘Critical thinking ability is the core skill of higher education. How to train the non-English major students＇ critical thinking ability in the English writing instruction plays an important role in the compound personnel training. In this paper, the reading-discussion-writing approach which guarantees the innovative construction of writing is proposed to train college students＇ critical thinking ability, and specific suggestions on the practice are articulated such as designing diversified listening and speaking lead-in activities to activate or supplement the relative notion and background knowledge, using variety of challenging reading-discussion-writing tasks, and conducting mutual evaluation, etc., to let students deeply understand the text through discussion and promote their language competence and writing ability as well as their reflective thinking ability.
文摘The study, conducted in the academic year 2008, explores the potential differences in the use of a dictionary in support of a standard writing task by two student groups at two different proficiency levels. Fifty seven students working on a real classroom assignment were observed; in order to make sure that the subjects behaved as they normally would, they had not been informed that their dictionary behavior was to be observed. The study which shows that the need for a dictionary is smaller in the case of more advanced students may be of interest to those foreign language teachers who fear that giving a student an unlimited access to a dictionary may hamper the development of his expressive abilities. In turn, a marked preference on the part of more advanced students for an L I-L2, paralleled by a sustained interest in information categories typically placed in foreign learner＇s dictionaries suggests that advanced language learners writing in English would probably opt for a lexicographic product combining the best of both dictionary types： an LI-L2 and an MLD.
