A Study On The Correlation Of Teacher Questions And Students’ Critical Thinking Cultivation In Senior High English Reading Classes

Under the contemporary education background,critical thinking has developed into an important thinking ability,it refers to rational and reflective thinking which evaluates and improves thinking through certain criteria.It includes critical thinking dispositions and critical thinking skills,and the former is the driving force of the latter.Teacher questions,basic form of classroom interaction,can not only arouse students’ interest in learning,transfer knowledge,gain feedback of teaching,promote information exchange between teachers and students,but also can guide students to think critically,besides,different types of teacher questions have different impact on students’ critical thinking.So far,scholars both abroad and at home research teacher questions and critical thinking from various dimensions;however,studies on the combination between them are few.Based on Bloom’s taxonomy in cognitive domain,teacher questions are divided into six types: knowledge question,understanding question,application question,comprehensive question,analysis question and evaluation question;combining with Nunan’s studies,the first three types belong to low cognitive question,the later three belong to high cognitive question.Built on the foundation of Facione’s studies of critical thinking,critical thinking disposition and its seven sub-scales are selected as the dimensions to carry out the research on correlation between types of teacher questions and students’ critical thinking.Three research questions are studied in this thesis:(1)What are the features of teacher questions?(2)What are the features of students’ critical thinking?(3)What are the features of correlation between types of teacher questions and students’ critical thinking?According to Piaget’s cognitive development theory,the fourth stage,formal operation(11-15 years old),is the most suitable period for cultivating students’ thinking,and in order to guarantee the validity and reliability of the research,the author selects four classes in senior one from parallel arts classes and the four English teachers from a senior high school in Chengdu as research objects.Additional,the research is carried out through taking reading classes in Book 3 and Book 4 Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press(FLTRP)as example,carrying out classroom observation on types of teacher questions for three months and transcribing classroom recording into text,and testing students’ critical thinking disposition by CCTDI.The author analyzes data collected from both classroom observation and questionnaire and makes into conclusions as follows.(1)Teacher questions in senior English teaching are distributed a little more on low cognitive questions;(2)For students’ critical thinking,that of most students are in contradiction and there is neither extreme strong stage nor extreme weak,students in the class that more high cognitive questions are applied have higher critical thinking;(3)There is a significant correlation between types of teacher questions and critical thinking disposition,both high cognitive questions and low cognitive questions have different relevance to students’ critical thinking disposition as well as its seven sub-scales.Based on above conclusions,the author puts forward following suggestions:teachers should make more efforts to improve professional level and to study strategies for cultivating students’ critical thinking;teachers should consciously seize the important period to cultivate senior high students’ critical thinking;teachers should lay emphasis on designing effective types teacher questions to gradually facilitate and improve students’ critical thinking.The author hopes this research can improve teachers’ awareness and can guide teachers to reflect about how to design appropriate types of teacher questions effectively to promote students’ critical thinking.