An Empirical Study On The "Question Chain" Teaching In English Reading To Improve Students’ Thinking Quality In Junior High School

As one of the core competencies clearly stipulated in the English Curriculum Standards for Compulsory Education(2022 Edition),thinking quality emphasizes the thinking development through language learning and language promotion in thinking developing.Therefore,the cultivation of thinking quality has become an important factor in promoting students’ comprehensive development and forming their personality.The question design plays a vital role in English reading teaching and in the cultivation of thinking quality,which can not only help students to mine the basic information of the reading passage and infer the deep meaning,but also broaden the depth and breadth of students’ thinking.However,the current teaching activities in junior high school English reading class mainly focus on the closed questions.The phenomenon that teachers pay too much attention to the language knowledge and basic information in the passage leads to students’ weak wholistic perception so that their thinking cannot be further diverged and innovated.Therefore,this study attempts to introduce the question chain into English reading class in junior high school so as to cultivate students’ thinking quality,trying to explore effective ways to improve students’ thinking and providing new ideas for teachers’ English reading teaching.The question chain is a sequence of questions with certain thinking values and logical relevance based on the content of the text and the characteristics of the students.It emphasizes the internal connection between the main questions and attaches importance to its hierarchy and systematization.Based on Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives and Marker’s Problem Continuum Theory,the study involves 42 students in Class 7,Grade 8 of Chengdu X Middle School as the research participants.Qualitative and quantitative methods are employed to verify whether the question chain can help English teachers cultivate junior students’ thinking quality.This study intends to address the following two questions:(1).What are the changes in students’ thinking performances in reading class guided by the question chain teaching?(2).What changes occur in students’ outputs in terms of thinking aspects after implementing the question chain teaching? Classroom observation and the interview of the students in the experimental class are used to analyze the changes in students’ thinking performances;The comparison of questionnaires,reading tests and mind maps helps to analyze whether students show positive changes in thinking aspects.Based on the analysis and discussion of the results,it has been found that the cultivation of thinking quality is a long-term process.The question chain teaching can promote thinking quality of students who are equipped with certain language knowledge,but it has a weak impact on those with lower language proficiency.Under the guidance of a series of hierarchical questions,the teacher can create a comfortable class atmosphere and stimulate students’ learning interests to make students’ thinking performances improved in class,which are conducive to the cultivation of students’ logical thinking,dialectical thinking and creative thinking;the question chain attaches importance to the decoding and reconstruction of texts,and emphasizes the importance of students’ interaction,so as to enhance students’ tendency of thinking quality,improve their English reading achievements and help them design the mind maps.The question chain teaching can effectively improve the thinking quality of some students.But in the process of implementation,teachers should consider the actual situation of students to establish the main question chain,realize the comprehensive and long-term development of thinking quality,and emphasize the effectiveness of interaction between teachers and students.