A Study Of The Question Design In Middle School English Reading Instruction For Critical Thinking Development

Recognizing the great importance of cultivating students' critical thinking(CT),which has been a broad consensus in the foreign language community,many scholars and teachers have carried out a lot of researches on English teaching for the development of CT.Among these studies,English reading class can be regarded as one of the significant exploration areas of CT cultivation,and the question design plays an extremely important role in an English reading class.With an entry point of the question design in English reading classes,the author tends to explore three questions as follows:(1)What is the current situation of CT cultivation from the question design in middle school English reading instruction?(2)What are teachers' perceptions,difficulties and needs of the question design for the development of CT in middle school English reading instruction ?(3)What are the methods to design questions for the development of CT in middle school English reading instruction? The author selected 18 English reading classes for classroom observation,conducted a questionnaire survey of 52 middle school English teachers in Hangzhou,and interviewed 5 of them,and then conducted an in-depth analysis and discussion on the three research questions.At last,the author presented some cases of the question design for CT development based on the framework of CT theory in this study.The results of the present study are as follows: each sub-item of CT is involved,but there is a difference in attention;teachers do not consider CT theory thoroughly before the question design;teachers attach importance to CT but do not know enough about it;the question design in English reading class for the development of CT is influenced by many factors,among which CT itself,school assessment and students' language level are the main obstacles,and it requires support from multiple aspects including school,experts,and so on;the methods to design reading questions for the development of CT were as follows: constructing a CT theoretical framework for question design,focusing on text-based in-depth interpretation,and using some skills of question design,such as title prediction,question chain,and so on.According to the above research results,the author provided several suggestions as follows: strengthening the systematic study of CT theory;strengthening the awareness of CT cultivation in the question design,especially the cultivation of CT dispositions;scientifically and systematically designing reading questions based on CT theory;coordinating the power of all parties to create a positive environment for CT cultivation;incorporating the cultivation of CT into the assessment criteria.