A Study On The Impact Of Mind Map-based English Reading Teaching On Junior High School Students' Critical Thinking Abilit

With the acceleration of globalization,the English Curriculum Standards for Compulsory Education(2022)and the core literacy of English subjects both claim that it is important to develop students’ thinking ability.Accordingly,English teaching in junior middle school also needs to pay attention to the development of students’ thinking ability.Reading is a process in which readers can get information and think creatively.So,it is an important way to promote students’ critical thinking ability by reading.Mind map always has distinct levels and clear structures,which makes it has been widely used in teaching.Mind map has made positive impacts,which shows its practical value in practical teaching.Focusing on the effects of mind map-based English reading teaching on junior middle school students’ critical thinking ability,this study focuses on the following questions:(1)What effects does mind map-based English reading teaching have on student’s critical thinking dispositions in junior middle school?(2)What effects does mind map-based English reading teaching have on student’s critical thinking skills in junior middle school?Experiments,questionnaires and interviews were used in this study.The experiment lasted for a whole semester.Students from two parallel classes were selected as subjects.They are from Grade 2021 in YS Middle School,Yantai City,Shandong Province.Class 2,Grade 2021 is the experimental group and Class 3,Grade 2021 is the control group.Before the experiment,the researcher gained an initial understanding of students’ critical thinking level through critical thinking skills test,Cornell Critical Thinking Skills Test and an interview.Then the teaching plan of mind map-based English reading was made according to the students’ critical thinking level.After the experiment,students took the post-test.The questionnaire data and test data were collected and were analyzed by SPSS26.0.The main findings of the study are as follows:(1)The combination of mind map and pre-reading activities can stimulate the flexibility and open-mindedness of students’ thinking effectively.Mind map combining with activities such as prediction and questioning can stimulate students’ analyticity and systematicity.(2)Mind map as an auxiliary teaching tool can encourages students to sort out and summarize what they have learned.This can help with developing their critical thinking abilities such as induction and deduction.The results show that,in junior middle school English classes,mind map-based reading teaching combines reading activities well and it can effectively improve the classroom environment.This change can also increase students’ participation in class,and guide students to think actively.This promotes a positive development of students’ thinking ability.It can significantly promote student’s critical thinking dispositions including analyticity,systematicity and open-mindedness and it also plays a cumulative role in improving their critical thinking skills,especially their abilities of inductive and deductive.