A Study On The Cultivation Of Students’ Critical Thinking Ability In Senior English Reading Teaching Based On Mind Map

Faced with today’s complex and complicated information,high school students need to have critical thinking to help them screen information,ask questions,analyze,discern and judge independently.However,at the current senior high school stage in China,there are no special critical thinking courses in schools.As an effective visual knowledge representation tool,mind map can activate left and right brains at the same time.By using keywords,graphics,colors,etc.to improve people’s understanding,memory and creative thinking ability,it has been widely used in the field of education.Therefore,this study applies mind map to English reading teaching in order to cultivate students’ critical thinking ability and improve reading comprehension achievement.In this study,two classes in grade two from a senior high school in Yining City were selected and randomly assigned to an experimental class and a controlled class.The experimental class uses mind map to assist reading teaching,while the controlled class conducts regular reading teaching.Through the use of English Reading Comprehension Test,the California Critical Thinking Dispositions Inventory Scale and Watson and Glazer Critical Thinking Skills Scale,this study is trying to explore the following three questions by conducting pre-test and post-test to these participants.(1)What is the present level of critical thinking ability of senior high school students in Yining city?(2)How does senior high school English reading teaching based on mind map affect students’ critical thinking ability?(3)What is the impact of mind map based English reading teaching on students’ reading achievement?The results show that: first,at present,the critical thinking ability of senior high school students is in the middle and lower level as a whole.There are no students with particularly strong critical thinking ability,and no students without critical thinking ability at all.In general,the critical thinking ability of students has a great potential to improve.Second,compared with the controlled class,the students in the experimental class have significantly improved in the aspects of truth-seeking,open-mindedness,analyticity,systematicity,inquisitiveness,recognition of assumptions,deduction,interpretation and evaluation of arguments.Although there is no significant difference in the aspects of Critical Thinking confidence,maturity and inference,there is also a certain degree of improvement.The critical thinking ability of the students in the controlled class remained nearly unchanged before and after the experiment.Third,compared with the controlled class,the experimental class has a significant improvement in English reading comprehension.To sum up,this research can help high school students develop critical thinking ability and can provide a practical reference for the development of high school English reading teaching practice.