A Comprehensive Review: Exploring Educators’ Insights on Cultivating Critical Thinking Ability among Secondary School Students in English Writing Instruction in China

This review critically reviews the research on cultivating critical thinking abilities in secondary school English writing classes. By examining the relevant factors of critical thinking abilities' importance to secondary school students, it identifies the current state of development of critical thinking abilities in English writing among Chinese secondary school students and describes practical principles from a teacher's perspective within authentic teaching scenarios. This review adopts Documentary Analysis Method and Bibliometric Analysis Method to analyze the obtained data. The main findings of the review are delineated into three main sections to explore the interaction between the teacher's perspective and the student's perspective in the context of English writing classes: 1) Integration of critical thinking instruction and cultivation in English writing teaching, including theoretical model construction, subject integration, and innovation; 2) The significance of implementing critical thinking instruction in English writing, such as the structuring and organizing of writing processes based on critical thinking skills, and the role of sub-skills of critical thinking; 3) Diverse strategies for cultivating critical thinking abilities. Moreover, the review lists major strategies, such as writing diaries and feedback, writing-thinking models, one-on-one guidance strategies, and transformative questioning methods, to facilitate the integration of critical thinking into written forms. This review exposes the gap between teaching objectives and classroom practices resulting from the lack of attention to critical thinking in current secondary school English writing instruction. It also provides insights for future research in integrating critical thinking approaches into secondary school English writing.