A Study On Strategies Of Developing Students' Critical Thinking Ability In High School English Reading Class

Critical thinking plays a great role in developing students' creative spirit and innovative ability.In recent y ears,many countries and educational circles have attached importance to critical thinking and developing students' crit ical thinking ability has become one of the most important goals of school education.The New English Curriculum Standard(2013)makes it clear,“ Teachers should develop students' skills of obtaining infor mation,dealing with informa tion,analyzing the problems,solving the problems,especially,developing students' ability of thinking and expressing in English to develop their critica l thinking ability.” It is known that r eading is an important way for students to acquire infor mation and knowledge,which has a great influence on the development of students' thinking ability.Therefore,fr om the require ment of quality education,this study aims to investigate the present situation of developing students' critical thinking in high school English reading class,analyze the reasons for the present situation and explore some effective strategies of developing students' critical thinking ability in high school English reading class.This study first introduces the definition,features and dimensions of critical thinking,reading models,the relationship between reading and critical thinking ability.In order to investigate the present situation of developing students' critical thinking ability in high school English reading class,the author invites six English teachers and 50 Senior one students from Chengdu Tang Hu Foreign Languages School to respectively participate in the interview and questionnaire survey.According to the data from the investigation,it is found that most English teachers have some concepts of critical thinking,but their awareness of developing students' critical thinking ability in the teaching procedures is not strong and seldom use the strategies of developing students' critical thinking ability,so that students are short of critical thinking ability.Based on the investigation,in Chapter four,the author explores some teaching strategies of developing students' critical thinking ability,which include setting development of students' critical thinking ability as an important teaching objective in English reading class;constructing a democratic and harmonious relationship between students and teachers;based on students' cognitive level,cultivating students' independent thinking through scaffolding;raising the awareness of students' questioning,and supplying students with more time to reflect.Combining these strategies with the author's own teaching practice,the author designs a teaching plan of a reading lesson and gives an analysis of this teaching plan.In conclusion,the author briefly states the pedagogical implications of the study and its limitations.