Developing a critical thinking skills-based program for enhancing writing competency in TEM Tests to ethnic minority students in Southwest China

Abstract

Critical thinking skills is considered as practical thinking skills in learning and teaching modern language. English writing is the main part in English language teaching and leaning and it is the main skill in the English language skills in China. With the correlation between the critical thinking skills and English writing competency, the cultivation on the critical thinking skills is necessary for improving English writing competency.

The purpose of this research is 1) to investigate the effects of the designed teaching programme in the environment of teaching ethnic minority students majored in English in the Southwest China; 2) to evaluate the degrees on improving English writing competency in TEM test through the teaching of the designed programme; 3) to investigate the ways in the designed teaching programme for enhancing English writing competency. In this research, the CCTDI (Chinese version) and the designed questionnaire are sent to the participants to investigate the features on both critical thinking skills and English writing competency in the first phase. Through the teaching experiment and the sequence researching on the participants, the results of the research in as following.

Firstly, the changes on the English writing composition of the TEM writing topics of the participants has been dramatically placed with learning with the designed teaching programme.

Secondly, the classroom activities participation, feedback from teachers affirm its effectiveness towards the enhancement on the English writing competency in the TEM tests for the ethnic minority students in the English major.

-