Incorporating Critical Literacy Into College English Reading Teaching:a Pre-service Teacher’s Action Research

With the rapid development of the society, Critical Literacy, as a social practice of texts, has become increasingly important nowadays. Nevertheless, contrasting to its popularity in English-language countries, Critical Literacy remains outside of mainstream concerns of English education in Mainland China. Few studies on its implementation in the reading teaching can be found, not to mention a curriculum which supports it.This study described one semester’s efforts of how the author, a pre-service teacher attempted to incorporate Critical Literacy into college English reading teaching in China through action research. The participants were a group of 61 non-English major sophomores in Zhejiang Normal University. Following Luke and Freebody’s (2000) Four Resources Model of Reading, I attempted to supplement readings as well as pose critical questions to encourage and help students read beyond the text on its literal level and raise their awareness of approaching it from a critical perspective. In the meantime I collected data through classroom observation, students’ reflective papers, questionnaires, interviews and teaching journals. I also recounted the difficulties and puzzles that I encountered during the process.The two-cycle study had the following three findings. First, students’ attitude towards the Critical Literacy reading practice experienced a change from the "high assessment low acceptation" to the "high assessment high acceptation". However, most students still believed that the main task of the reading course should be about learning vocabulary, grammar and reading skills. In general, the students held a positive attitude towards it but did not expect to spend too much time on it in English reading class. Secondly, students’ critical consciousness had improved in different degrees. For instance, a majority of them learned to read from multiple perspectives in reading; Over two thirds of them realized the purposeful choice of particular information and the presupposed purpose in a text. Thirdly, in the research process, I underwent an improvement both in my professional teaching skills and my conception of doing Critical Literacy. However, I also encountered some difficulties such as the selection of appropriate reading materials, the designing of the critical questions and the change of students’ traditional English learning beliefs.Lastly, based on the major findings and the problems identified, I gave two pedagogical implications including using appropriate texts as supplementary materials and creating a democratic and open classroom environment. Two recommendations for the further research which were the development of CL teaching materials as well as the relationship between EFL learners’attitude towards CL and their English language proficiency were provided.