A Study On The Activity Design Of The Reading & Thinking Section Of The PEP Senior High School English Textbooks (2019) From The Perspective Of Cultivation Of Thinking Quality

According to the requirements of the Ministry of Education,high schools in all provinces including autonomous regions and municipalities directly managed by the central government have to teach the new curriculum with the latest textbooks from the autumn semester in 2022.As one of the latest textbooks,whether the PEP Senior High School English Textbooks(2019)or SHSET(2019)designed according to the National English Curriculum Standards for General Senior High Schools(2017)or the Standards have provided an activity design meeting the requirements of the Standards on cultivation of thinking quality for its Reading and Thinking section or the R&T section and if this activity design has provided sound support for the cultivation of students’ thinking quality will greatly affect teachers’ practice of the cultivation of this core competency of the students in teaching.In addition,as times change,it is necessary to constantly explore the compatibility between textbooks and curriculum standards and the application of textbooks to teaching so as to promote the continuous improvement and development of textbooks.Therefore,this study analyzed and evaluated the activity design of the R&T section of the seven textbooks of SHSET(2019)including three compulsory books and four selective compulsory books from the perspective of cultivation of thinking quality based on the revised Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives,observed classes of the R&T section of two front-line senior high school English teachers who were interviewed after the observation,and surveyed 28 English teachers who had used or studied the textbooks carefully through questionnaires so as to explore answers to the following three questions:1.What aspects of students’ thinking quality have been paid attention to in the activity design of the R&T section of SHSET(2019)and what is the degree of the attention that each aspect has been paid to?2.Can the activity design of the R&T section of SHSET(2019)provide sound support for teachers to cultivate students’ thinking quality in practical teaching?3.How can the activity design of the R&T section of SHSET(2019)be made better use of to cultivate students’ thinking quality?It is found in the study that all the three aspects of thinking quality have been paid attention to in the activity design of the R&T section of SHSET(2019)but in an imbalanced manner with logic being focused on the most and creativity second to both logic and criticalness.Besides,the activity design of the R&T section generally follows the law of students’ cognitive development,represents the intention of the Standards to cultivate students’ thinking quality,and is able to meet the needs of teachers to cultivate students’ thinking quality in teaching basically,making it recognized at a relatively high level among teachers.However,the quantity of high-order thinking activities and the diversity of the forms for these activities designed in the R&T section are not sufficient,especially those to cultivate students’ criticalness and creativity,making it not easy for teachers to cultivate students’ thinking quality in teaching.Therefore,suggestions have been put forward for textbook compilation including adding more high-order thinking activities to the R&T section,diversifying forms for high-order thinking activities and adapting existing high-order thinking activities to promote the application of the activities designed so as to balance the attention to different aspects of thinking quality and promote the cultivation of thinking quality in the activity design of the R&T section of SHSET(2019).Besides,teachers are advised regarding to the problems found to continuously strengthen the awareness of cultivation of thinking quality to promote the practice of cultivation of thinking quality in teaching,consciously adjust the quantity and percentage of high-order thinking activities in teaching to balance the attention to different aspects of thinking quality,and actively invent more forms for high-order thinking activities by further digging the potentials of the textbooks for reference and learning from other resources to explore more methods to diversify the methods of cultivating thinking quality in teaching so as to make up for the deficiencies in the textbooks and the teachers themselves in terms of cultivation of thinking quality.