July 15-16, 2017, the 7th China Conference on Critical Thinking and Creativity Education was held at the Southwestern University of Finance and Economics in Chengdu. Some 150 experts, scholars and teachers in all research fields from the Netherlands, Canada, Australia, and China’s Hong Kong, China’s Taiwan and China’s Mainland attended the meeting. Sponsored by the Supervisory Committee of Critical Thinking and Creativity Education under the Supervisory Committee of the Cultural Quality Education for the Institutions of Higher Learning of the Chinese Ministry of Education, the 2017 meeting was jointly hosted by the School of General Education, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics and the Institute of Logic and Cognitive Studies, Sun Yat-sen University. Dean Assistant Wu Peng and Ms. Yan Linqiong of the English Department attended the meeting.
At the meeting, Wu Peng served as the convenor, question-master and commentator of the parallel session of “Critical thinking teaching at colleges and universities”, and Yan Linqiong also served as a commentator. Speeches at this session are mainly focused on the idea and method for the cultivation of critical thinking ability in all courses offered at China’s colleges and universities, especially the cultivation of critical thinking ability in foreign language courses. In his speech entitled “Exploration into and practice of the teaching mode for academic English highlighting the cultivation of the ability of critical discussion”, Wu Peng gave an all-round introduction to the related studies on and deficiencies in critical thinking ability in the circles of foreign language teaching in China, to the formation of critical discussion ability and to the exploration into and practice of academic English instruction and the cultivation of critical discussion ability in Jiangsu University. His speech started a heated discussion among the experts and scholars present at the meeting, who applauded his speech universally. After the meeting, Wu Peng also made a ten-minute report of discussions at the parallel session to the General Assembly, focusing on how to consolidate both the theory and practice of the instruction of critical thinking.
During their stay at Chengdu, Wu Peng and Yan Linqiong also propagated the achievements that have been made by the School of Foreign Languages and the ILIAS in the past two years in the studies on argumentation theory and critical thinking ability. Both the theoretical and practical achievements publicized were highly commended by the experts and scholars at the meeting.
(School of Foreign Languages)
Chinese
English