An Action Research On Improving Senior High School Students’ Critical Thinking Skills In English Reading Class

With the advancement of English curriculum reform and the introduction of core literacy of the subject,high school English teachers are increasingly aware of the importance of cultivating students’ critical thinking skills.Critical thinking ability is composed of critical thinking skills and critical thinking tendencies.Domestic and foreign scholars have made some research and progress in cultivating students’ critical thinking skills in reading and writing,but there are few studies on cultivating students’ critical thinking skills.At the beginning of September 2020,the author conducted teaching practice in Xintai No.1 Middle School,and the research object was the second grade(16)class.Through questionnaires,student interviews,and reading comprehension tests,the status of students’ critical thinking has been investigated and analyzed.The author decided to adopt an action research method to apply critical reading strategies to the English reading teaching of the second year of high school.Action research is divided into two phases.The first phase lasts for one month.Firstly,students will be proficient in reading and apply critical thinking reading strategies.Second,the author focus on improving students’ critical thinking skills in interpretation,analysis,reasoning and explanation.The second phase of action research lasts for two months.First,students will be proficient in reading and apply the critical thinking skills of interpretation,analysis,reasoning and explanation in the first phase.Second,the author focus on improving students’ critical thinking skills in evaluation and self-control.Analyzing the results of the data through a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods,the following conclusions are drawn: 1.Using critical reading strategies can effectively improve students’ critical thinking skills.2.The correct rate of the four types of questions,the main idea questions,detailed understanding questions,reasoning and judgment questions,and semantic guessing questions,has been improved.3.In the English reading class,the use of critical reading strategies has greatly improved students’ attention to their own thinking level and enhanced their confidence in English learning.Finally,the author puts forward specific opinions on the problems in action research,and provides reference suggestions for the better application of critical reading strategies in reading teaching to improve students’ critical thinking skills.