Effect Of Theme-Based CBI English Reading Teaching On Senior High School Students' Critical Thinking

Critical thinking plays an important role in personal development,so its cultivation has attracted wide attention from scholars both at home and abroad.However,there are just a few empirical studies on the cultivation of critical thinking,especially in the field of high school English reading in China.The regularly-used English reading teaching emphasizes on the study of language but neglects the cultivation of critical thinking,which leads to students' having “absence of critical thinking.” Theme-based CBI is a teaching model which combines language learning with theme content learning.It pays attention to the development of students' critical thinking.Therefore,this study applied theme-based CBI English reading teaching in senior high school to explore its effect on senior high school students' critical thinking.The author intended to study the effect of theme-based CBI English reading teaching on senior high school students' critical thinking skills and dispositions.The author conducted a two-month English reading teaching experiment.60 students were randomly selected from two parallel classes in a senior high school in Heshui,Qingyang.They were randomly chosen into the experimental class and the control class.In the experimental class,the author applied theme-based CBI for English reading teaching,while in the control class,the author used regularly-used English reading teaching.California Critical Thinking Skills Test and Critical Thinking Dispositions Test were used as instruments to evaluate students' critical thinking.At the end of the experiment,the author used SPSS17.0 to analyze the experimental data and show the results.The results indicated that theme-based CBI English reading teaching can improve senior high school students' critical thinking skills in analysis,inference,evaluation and induction.Besides,it can also improve senior high school students' critical thinking dispositions in truth-seeking,open-mindedness,analyticity,self-confidence and inquisitiveness.Based on the results of the study,the author gives some implications for theme-based CBI English reading teaching.However,this study also has limitations.Therefore,the author proposes some suggestions for future study.