Action Research On Cultivating Thinking Quality In English Reading Teaching In Senior High School

According to the 2017 edition of the General Senior High School Curriculum Standards,the cultivation and development of students’ thinking quality is an important objective of English education in senior high school.However,there are still deficiencies in the training of students’ thinking quality in current senior high school English teaching.Reading is a crucial component of high school English education,and reading instruction is integral to the training of thinking quality.In this study,54 students from a senior high school in Zhumadian,Henan Province are examined through two rounds of action research with an aim to cultivate and develop students’ thinking quality in reading teaching.The study attempts to answer two questions:(1)What teaching activities are contributive to developing logical,critical and creative thinking in teaching English reading in senior high school?(2)How effective is teaching English reading with the objective of cultivating and developing students’ thinking quality and improving their thinking skills?To answer the two questions,two rounds of action research are undertaken by the author.Interviews are conducted to determine teachers’ perceptions of thinking quality in the preparation phase prior to the action research.At the same time,the current status of students’ thinking quality training is investigated through questionnaires and pre-reading test papers.Based on the results of the pre-test,the first round of action research was conducted.The English reading mode was designed to develop students’ thinking quality in terms of logic,criticality,and creativity by incorporating teaching contents,teaching objectives,teaching activities,and teaching steps.Based on the results of the first round of research,the second round of research was conducted.Teaching activities such as debate competitions are added to further develop students’ critical and innovative thinking quality.After two rounds of English reading action research,it is found that:(1)It is feasible to cultivate and develop students’ thinking quality in English reading teaching by means of various activities.Activities such as identifying the genre of a text and summarising the main idea of a passage can be used to improve students’ logical thinking,criticality can be improved by predicting the development of content and inferring the author’s intentions in class,and rhetorical appreciation and brainstorming activities can also improve students’ creative thinking to a great extent.(2)Combining pre-data and post-data from the Thinking Quality Questionnaire,reading tests and student interviews,it is found that English reading instruction oriented to thinking quality training can significantly improve senior high school students’ thinking quality and reading ability.In brief,this study demonstrates to a certain extent the feasibility and effectiveness of developing students’ thinking quality in senior high school English reading classes,and provides a reference for frontline English teachers’ teaching.However,there is still much space for improvement in the action observation in this study due to the limitations of the teaching population size,students’ English foundation,and the relatively short duration of the placement.In future reading teaching,teachers can adjust and enrich their teaching activities to give the positive impact of thinking quality enhancement on English reading teaching classrooms to the fullest.