Empowering Critical Thinking in EFL Learners’ Writing Through AIGC: A Model Based on the “Questioning-Dialectic-Reconstruction” Cyclical Framework

Abstract

The rise of generative artificial intelligence presents unprecedented challenges and opportunities for EFL learners' writing instruction, especially when students are required to express technical concepts, experimental processes, and research arguments in advanced engineering fields such as electromagnetic waves, antennas, propagation, and radiofrequency systems. This technological shift enables students to organize engineering information with professional linguistic structures more effectively, fostering the specialized communicative competence required in academic and technical writing contexts. Traditional teaching models centered on language correction and model essay imitation have seen their efficacy diminish in the face of AIGC, potentially fostering intellectual passivity in students. This study aims to construct an AIGC-enabled teaching model for EFL learners' writing, centered on a “Questioning-Dialectic- Reconstructing” cycle. This model positions AIGC as a “thinking partner” and “dialectical opponent”, systematically integrating it into the pre-writing, drafting, and revision stages of the writing process. It guides students in transforming from passive content consumers into active and discerning knowledge constructors. The paper elaborates on the theoretical foundation, three-stage operational procedure, and supportive assessment system of the model, demonstrating its application through concrete instructional cases involving engineering-oriented writing tasks. The goal is to provide a theoretical model and practical guidelines for transforming writing pedagogy toward critical thinking in the AIGC era.