A Study Of The Application Of Critical Reading Strategies In English Reading Teaching At Senior High Schools

In the 21 th century,all kinds of information have occupied our lives.It is important for people to have critical thinking to analyze and judge the information they get.Besides,it is well-known that reading is an important way to acquire different kinds of information.Therefore,critical reading becomes significant.In senior high school,most students acquire English knowledge from reading.So English reading is often regarded as the focus of teaching by English teachers.But most of the senior high school teachers still use traditional teaching method,which focuses on grammar and vocabulary.Students usually focus on the literal meaning of the text and lack of deep understanding for the text.Besides,critical reading can meet the requirement of General High School English Curriculum Standards.Based on the above background,critical reading is important for senior high school students.Critical reading is considered to be a high level of reading,which requires readers to use strategies to analyze,question and evaluate to have a deep understanding for the text.Critical reading strategies are important in critical reading class.By reviewing and analyzing other scholar's literature,it can be found that the studies of the application of critical reading strategies to English reading in senior high school are very few.So after having a full understanding of critical thinking,based on critical discourse analysis theory,this research is designed.The researcher chooses 129 students from the NO.1 Senior High School of Lushan as subjects of the study,which aims to study the following questions through two questionnaires,interviews,two tests and three-month's teaching experiment:1.What are the students' attitudes toward the application of critical reading strategies?2.What changes can the students' frequency of using critical reading strategies take up?3.What effects can the application of critical reading strategies have on students' reading ability and critical reading ability?Before the experiment,the author conducts a questionnaire,a test and interviews.The results show that the two classes have similar reading levels.And the frequency of using critical reading strategies in these two classes is basically the same.During the three-month's experiment,in the experimental class,critical reading strategies are applied in English reading class.And the traditional method is applied in the control class.After three-month's teaching experiment,the post-test is carried out.The post-questionnaire and post-interview are conducted after the post-test.After the experiment,the data of the research are collected and analyzed.The results are presented as follows: 1)Before the experiment,students just know little about critical reading and critical reading strategies.So they don't have a clear attitude toward critical reading and critical reading strategies.But when they have a basic understanding of critical reading strategies,most students think these strategies are interesting and useful.They want to learn and use these strategies in their reading.After the teaching experiment,most students think the application of critical reading strategies is useful.They are willing to use them.2)In the experimental class,the frequency of using critical reading strategies get improved.According to Oxford's criterion of frequency scale,the usage frequency of annotating and self-regulating becomes high.The usage frequency of questioning is still low.The frequency of predicting,analyzing,inferring,evaluating and summarizing get improved from low to media.3)In the experiment class,students' reading ability is improved significantly through analyzing the data of pre-test and post-test.And students' critical reading ability is also improved.Therefore,it can be concluded that the application of critical reading strategies in English reading class is effective in senior high school.At the same time,some problems and suggestions of the application of critical reading strategies are also presented.