A Lexical Approach To Facilitate EFL Critical Reading

Living in the Age of "Information", the reading ability has been attached moreimportance all over the world. More significantly, we are encouraged to apply CriticalThinking into English Reading, known as EFL Critical Reading to better utilize theinformation by deciding the worth and quality of written pieces. English Reading is apsychological process of absorbing and transforming information rather than simplymemorizing linguistic symbols. Many people would agree that Critical Reading is an act ofreading in which a questioning attitude, logical analysis, and inference are used to judge theworth of what is read according to an established standard [2]. Based on the comprehension ofwritten passages, readers are anticipated to interpret, analyze and evaluate the expressedinformation with objective criteria and mature skepticism. It is comforting to see that the EFLability has been increasing in China since the recent decades. However, we have to admit thatthe EFL reading competence of Chinese students (typical EFL learners) is still verydisproportionate with the L2 learners' investment on EFL studying.Many L2 learners confess that they have great difficulty in guessing unknown words,analyzing complex grammatical structures and so on in the process of reading. Moreover,most of them fail to analyze and assess the passages in a rational manner with activeparticipation of the texts. A new perspective of LEXIS is offered in this paper to show thatcohesion of the texts is the product of lexical relations not grammatical ones [1]P27. Therefore,the notion of English texture has shifted from the traditional syntax-centered to lexis-centered.With the assumption that lexis is the basis of English language, EFL critical reading abilitycan be facilitated with the morphological instructions. The improvement of such skills can beinterpreted clearly by means of three aspects, namely, Analysis of Grammaticalized lexis,Lexical Logical Markers, and Lexical Inferencing Strategies (LIS).Different from the traditional education goals such as "transmission of knowledge", thetraining of Critical Thinking and Problem-Solving skills are more valued in the Age ofPragmaticism. With the transition from Learning to read to Reading to learn in today's world,Critical Reading ability has been shed more lights in most academic curriculum, and evennearly all careers. A lexical Approach, instructions of the knowledge of internal structure andusage of English words would contribute greatly to the facilitation of L2 learners' abilities ofmaking logical inferences, guessing new words, assessing evidence and consideringalternatives within the practice of Critical Reading.