An Action Research On Promoting The Critical Thinking Of Senior High School Students Based On The Types Of Teachers' Questioning In English Reading Class

The New English Curriculum Standard for Senior High School figures it out that developing the basic qualities of students in English teaching is of great significance,for instance,language ability,cultural awareness,thinking quality and learning ability.Among them,cultivating their thinking quality also involves the formation of critical thinking.By emphasizing the development of thinking quality,the cultivation of the critical thinking of students has attracted increasing amount of attention.Their critical thinking ability plays a growingly apparent role in comprehensive ability as well.Teachers' questioning in class,in particular,those questions with high cognitive level,specifically impacts the critical thinking of students.Nonetheless,in accordance with prevailing scenario of teachers' questioning in English reading class in senior high school,it is evident that the number of teachers' questioning with high cognitive level is comparatively smaller,which is not conducive to the promotion of the cultivation of the critical thinking of students.Teachers' questioning is counted among the most pivotal teaching methodologies.It plays a key role in the stimulation of students' enthusiasm,creativity and thinking in English reading classes in senior high schools.Besides,it is also termed as one of the pivotal means of cultivating students' critical thinking in English teaching.That is why it substantially important to put efforts for the cultivation of students' critical thinking by means of teachers' questioning in English reading class in a senior high school.Cultivating critical thinking skills and language teaching are going to be combined in the current research work.On the basis of the prevalent scenario of teachers' questioning in reading classes and students' critical thinking,the author puts efforts to explore whether students' critical thinking can be cultivated through the application of different types of teachers' questions.This study was carried out among 40 students in a parallel class of Grade 1 in a senior high school,situated in Guangzhou City,Guangdong Province.In addition,the reading class of each unit are going be put to use to do the action research during 16 weeks.The research tools employed included the California Critical Thinking Skills Test,teaching journal and interview.This research work is going to place emphasis on the two questions as hereunder:(1)To what extent,do different types of questions raised by the teacher in English reading class help facilitate students' critical thinking skills?(2)How are different types of teachers' questions raised by the teacher conducted to better cultivate students' critical thinking skills?The author made use of Excel and SPSS 24 software for the purpose of analyzing the collected data.As the findings suggest:(1)Students' critical thinking skills will be impacted positively by different types of teacher's questions in an English reading class.(2)At first,the application of the best ratio between questions for both the high cognitive level and low cognitive level to English reading class is conducive to the promotion of students' critical thinking.Second,at different stages of the reading class,different types of questions should be raised.And the lecturing time for questions of high cognitive level should be prolonged appropriately.Third,teachers ask questions not only for the whole class but also for individuals,besides providing students with sufficient waiting time.Fourth,it is necessary to focus on the hierarchy of the questions in the course of questioning.The questions of the low cognitive level should be raised firstly,followed by coming to the questions of high cognitive level.Eventually,different development trajectories of cognitive level in teacher's questions are put to use.On the basis of the above research findings,some enlightenment addressing how to cultivate students' critical thinking with the use of questioning and suggestions for the future research will be put forward.