An Empirical Study Of English Critical Reading Teaching In Senior High Schools

Recent years,the educational reform has promoted the innovation and development of the English teaching and the overall English level has been improved all around China.The English Curriculum Standard clearly points out that English teaching in senior high school should pay attention to cultivating students' critical reading ability based on their communicative need and cognitive level.Furthermore,in the information era,with the popularity and development of the Internet,people need to deal with and judge plenty of knowledge and information.Therefore,according to the need of the English Curriculum Standard and the era development,it is necessary to cultivate students' critical reading ability.Reading is an important way to obtain knowledge and the reading ability is one of the important skills in English learning.However,the reading teaching in senior high school is a little disappointing.Words,phrases,sentences and grammar analysis are overemphasized by English teachers.On the contrary,they guide students little to judge,evaluate and question the text and the author which accounts to the condition is that students are passive and weary to learn English.Thus,the center of the English reading teaching should be transferred to cultivate students' critical reading ability.In order to deal with the problems in English reading teaching,the research tries to conduct the English critical reading reaching in senior high school to improve the current English reading teaching conditions.Based on the theory of constructivist learning theory and critical discourse analysis,this thesis adopts questionnaires and tests to check whether the critical reading teaching can promote students' critical reading ability and raise students' awareness of using critical reading strategies.And two classes in Grade1 in Xi'an Middle School are regarded as the subjects.The results show that critical reading teaching can promote students' critical reading ability and raise their awareness of using critical reading strategies.In conclusion,the author believes it is feasible and significant to instruct senior high school students how to read critically.Developing students' critical reading ability can also set up a sordid foundation for their creative study and work in the future,and meet the requirement that “shift from teacher-oriented to student-oriented” during the reform of education in China.