An Empirical Study Of Applying Critical Reading To English Teaching In Senior High School

Critical Reading refers to the reading activity in which readers can analyze, evaluate the views of the writer and then integrate what they have read. In this high-tech Information Age, mastering critical reading ability and creativity is becoming more and more important, especially for senior high school students whose value is not mature. They are more likely to be influenced by the information in the text.To examine the effect of applying critical reading to English teaching in senior high school on students’ reading ability; use frequency and awareness of critical reading strategies, an empirical study was conducted by applying critical reading to English teaching in senior high school based on constructivism learning theory and critical discourse analysis theory.The experiment was performed in Jizhou Senior High School, with 129 subjects of two parallel classes in Grade One. One class served as the experimental class, which was taught by applying critical reading to English reading teaching, that is, the teaching of “students-centered, teacher-guided, critical reading strategies-focused, and critical awareness-cultivated”; while the other was the controlled class, which still adopted the traditional reading teaching method, focusing mainly on language points. The present study is a quantitative as well as qualitative study, in which questionnaires, reading test papers, and interview are used to collect data. All the data collected from the experiment are processed by SPSS 13.0.The results of the study indicate that the application of critical reading to English teaching in senior high school can promote students’ reading ability; the application of critical reading to English teaching in senior high school can increase students’ frequency of using critical reading strategies; the application of critical reading to English teaching in senior high school can increase students’ awareness of critical reading strategies.The findings from the experiment further verify the effectiveness of critical reading on improving students’ reading ability, and offer implications for further study.