A Survey On Senior High School Students’ English Critical Reading Ability

Critical reading is a high-level reading activity which can meet the needs of advanced and active readers in the information-exploded era.More and more previous studies have recognized the practical significance of critical reading ability;however,fewer empirical researches on cultivation of English critical reading ability have been made.This study aims to investigate the status quo of Chinese high school students’ EFL critical reading ability in term of critical reading awareness,students’ self-assessment of critical reading ability and test performance.228 students of grade two from Lichuan No.1 middle school are involved in the study.The instruments applied in the study are two questionnaires,a critical reading test paper and interviews with 6 students.Both quantitative and qualitative methods are employed to analyze the collected data of the present study to get the following findings.First,students’ overall critical reading awareness is rather weak,but they show different levels of awareness in the five subcategories of critical reading.Students’ awareness about critical reading needs and structure analysis is stronger than awareness about rhetoric analysis,social relevance analysis and holistic evaluation.Second,key class students’ self-reported critical reading abilities significantly differ from those of the ordinary students in all subcategories except for the assessment of background information analysis.Great difference only exists in awareness about structure analysis.Third,students’ self-assessment of their critical reading ability and critical reading awareness are both positively correlated with their actual test performance.Further coefficient analysis showed that structure analysis is the key element to explain the test performance.This study provides valuable suggestions for high school English teaching and learning.Language teachers should realize the significance of developing critical reading ability,bring critical reading into daily classroom teaching to strengthen students’ critical reading awareness,and cultivate students’ critical reading ability.What’s more,critical reading skills should be incorporated in an English test to help students build and develop critical reading awareness and ability.Students should form the habit of questioning,actively thinking,analyzing and evaluating their reading practice,and learn to improve their critical reading skills with constant training.