A Study On Classroom Activities Of English Critical Reading In Senior High School

Nowadays,in the age of information explosion,we need to seek the truth rationally and critically from overwhelming data.English curriculum reforms also calls for the importance of critical thinking.However,in our current instruction of English reading courses in senior high school,teachers neglect the cultivation of students’ critical thinking and reading literacy.Teachers only focus on language learning.They fragment the text when explaining and oversimplify their teaching design.This study considers classroom activities for critical thinking in reading instruction and aims to explore the following questions: 1)How is the current situation of students’ critical thinking skills in reading? 2)What types of classroom activities are there in critical reading class? 3)What are the features of classroom activities in critical reading class?This research firstly makes a survey to explore the current situation of critical reading among 204 senior high school students.Afterwards,taking Facione’s two-dimensional model of critical thinking as theoretical criterion,the researcher observes and transcribes the classroom activities in Tenth National Senior High School English Demonstration Classes.Then,the research analyzes the interaction between teacher and students in one class case based on Flanders Interaction Analysis System(FIAS)through Nvivo 12.The findings of this research are threefold.The first is that senior high school students have poor performance in critical skills when reading comprehension.The second is the categories of classroom activities in terms of critical thinking.1)The classroom activities for interpretation involve concluding the main idea,formulate categories,paraphrasing,clarifying the meaning,decoding the information,describe the character,exploring the theme,tracking the main line and defining the concepts.2)The classroom activities for analysis include the following activities: distinguish the facts,analyze the structure,identify the purpose,determine the causality and inspect the argument.3)The classroom activities like reviewing writer’s opinion,assessing compeer’s idea and making reader’s comments are conducive to the cultivation of analysis skill.4)The classroom activities for inference incorporate predicting the main idea,guessing the word meaning,supposing the continuation,inquiring the genre,inferring the plot,calculating the relation and speculating the characteristics.5)The classroom activities for explanation entails the following activities: illustrate reviews,state opinion,role play,identity a title,create works,discriminate dilemma and brainstorm measures.The third is the features of teacher-student interactive behaviors.The teacher focuses on students’ emotional and gives timely positive feedback.Moreover,the teacher is good at asking questions and stimulating students’ initiatives.Meanwhile,the teacher gives students much time to think over and present the ideas.But,the teacher repeats students’ answers too much.The classroom activities and teacher-student verbal interaction in this study can be of some value for the teaching design and classroom instruction respectively for the frontline teachers.Besides,the research method of qualitative analysis can be the enlightenment to the related researches.