An Empirical Study On The Effects Of English Critical Reading Instruction In Senior High School

In recent years,the in-depth educational reform has promoted the innovation and development of English instruction so that the English teaching level in China has been improved as a whole.The National English Curriculum Standards of Senior High School(NECS)revised in 2017 clearly states that according to the cognitive development level and communication needs of the senior high school students,English instruction should focus on the cultivation of the students' critical thinking competence.Therefore,in order to meet the need of the time and the requirements of the curriculum reform,English critical instruction is imperative.Reading,as a way of language input,is also a chief means to cultivate the quality of critical reading,so it is crucial to implement the English critical reading instruction.However,in the process of English reading instruction,the teacher paid too much attention to words,phrases,sentences and grammar explanation,and failed to guide the students to conduct higher-level analysis and evaluation of the text and the author's viewpoint.Consequently,in order to improve this problem of English reading instruction,this research attempts to apply the critical reading instruction in senior high school English classes,aiming to explore its effects on the students' application of English critical reading strategies and their reading comprehension competence.Adopting the questionnaire survey method and the contrasted experiment method,the researcher selected 101 senior high school students from Chongqing Chao Yang Middle School as the research subjects,with Class 13 of Grade 2 as the experimental class and Class 16 of Grade 2 as the control class.Before and after the experiment,the researcher distributed the questionnaire about the application of critical reading strategies and the test papers reflecting the students' reading comprehension competence,intending to answer the following four questions: 1)What is the current situation of the students' application of critical reading strategies? 2)What is thecurrent situation of the students' reading comprehension competence? 3)What is the effect of English critical reading instruction on the students' application of critical reading strategies? 4)What is the effect of English critical reading instruction on the students' reading comprehension competence?Through the analysis of the independent sample test and paired sample test of the two classes before and after the experiment by software SPSS 16.0,the major findings of this research were listed as follows: 1)Before the experiment,the current situation of the students' application of critical reading strategies was not satisfying;2)Before the experiment,the current situation of the students' reading comprehension competence was poor;3)After the experiment,compared with the teaching of traditional reading,English critical reading instruction has effectively increased the frequency of the students' application of critical reading strategies,especially the previewing,annotating,summarizing,analyzing,and predicting strategy.While it had no significant impact on the questioning strategy and the evaluating strategy;4)After the experiment,compared with the teaching of traditional reading,English critical reading instruction has effectively improved the students' reading comprehension competence,among which the competence of summarizing,analyzing and inferring were enhanced more obviously.In conclusion,this research demonstrated that English critical reading instruction in senior high school was of positive significance and might provide more reference and inspiration for future teaching of English reading.