A Study On Teaching English Critical Reading And Cultivation Of Critical Thinking In A Senior High School

Nowadays,high school students need critical thinking to make their selection,judgment,analysis and evaluation of publicly available information.As an effective way of teaching English reading,critical reading teaching can not only improve the reading comprehension ability of senior high school students,but also have a positive effect on the cultivation of their critical thinking.Therefore,it is of great significance to carry out the critical reading teaching in senior high schools.Based on the constructivist learning theory and the theory of discourse analysis,the research clarifies the connotation of reading,critical thinking and critical reading.Combining the critical reading strategies with the author's own teaching experience,the author conducted a four-month comparative teaching experiment in two different classes(61students in total),collected and analyzed the two classes' statistics of questionnaires and critical thinking tests before and after the experiment according to SPSS21.0,aiming to study the following three questions:(1)Do senior high school students use critical reading strategies in their English reading exercises? What are their specific strategies?(2)How do teachers implement effective critical reading teaching in senior high school students' English reading class?(3)Can critical reading teaching contribute to the cultivation of the students' critical thinking?Through in-depth research,this study comes up with the following findings:First,senior high school students seldom use critical reading strategies in their English reading practice.Most students show the slightest interest in English reading and always read passively.Worse still,they,not in the habit of commentary while reading,are fairly weak in the capacity of summary,analysis,reasoning,judgment,evaluation,etc.Second,to carry out effective critical reading teaching in senior high schools,to start with,teachers need create a harmoniously cooperative reading atmosphere;next,teachersneed to guide students to read critically on the basis of the content;in addition,teachers need to integrate strategy training so as to develop students' critical thinking ability;finally,teachers should raise appropriate questions in order to spark off students' critical thinking.Third,teaching critical reading in senior high schools can promote the cultivation of critical thinking.The students in the experimental class have improved,to varying degrees,in their critical thinking ability including analysis,openness,critical thinking confidence and maturity.It's proved in this study that teaching critical reading in senior high schools can promote students' critical thinking.Teachers,therefore,should pay more attention to the cultivation of critical reading strategies in the reading class.