Human-Machine Collaborative Critical Thinking: An Innovative Pathway for Integrating AIGC into College English Education

Abstract

Drawing upon human-machine symbiosis theory, constructivist learning theory, and critical discourse analysis, this paper proposes a comprehensive pre-class，in-class and post-class human-machine collaborative critical thinking teaching model for college English reading-writing instruction. The model repositions AI not as a mere productivity tool but as a dialogic thinking partner—a multi-perspective content provider, an adversarial reasoning interlocutor, and a diagnostic logic analyst. The paper analyzes the pedagogical rationale, implementation logic, and practical challenges of this approach, and proposes targeted optimization strategies across four dimensions: teacher AI literacy development, classroom usage guidelines, prompt engineering, and multi-stakeholder evaluation systems. The proposed pathway offers a theoretically grounded and practically actionable framework for fostering critical thinking in college English classrooms through intentional human-AIGC collaboration.