Integration of Literary Studies to Develop Business English Majors’ Critical Thinking Skills

Abstract

This study investigated an effective teaching model to develop Business English majors’ critical thinking skills through integrations of classical poetry and fiction. Both task-based and student-centered approaches were incorporated with a focus on group- dynamism: group  presentations, guided in class discussion, reading comprehension, individual essay-question reports, and quizzes. The samples for the study were 15 Business English majors studying Reading Skills in the Second Semester of 2016 academic year. There were 12 females and 3 males, aged between 21-24. Data for analysis included a pretest, and posttest, followed by individual interview with the researcher after the project, including a self-assessed questionnaire. The project lasted 8 weeks. Both descriptive analysis and percentage were used to present the data. The findings showed that literature reading, and poetry writing helped students improve their overall critical thinking skills, even those who scored rather low in the pretest. However, their English proficiency did not relate to their performance as shown in the post test. From both individual interviews and the questionnaire all students agreed that guided in-class discussion and individual essay-question report proved more effective than other student activities in developing their critical thinking skills.