An Empirical Study On The Impact Of Critical Thinking Skills’ Cultivation On Senior High Students’ English Reading Achievement In Reading Classes

Critical thinking is the core literacy that attracts more attention both at home and abroad.National English Curriculum Standards for General High Schools(2017)clearly proposes to cultivate students’ English literacy.Critical thinking is also an essential connotation of core literacy.Students need critical thinking skills to settle different types of questions correctly in reading comprehension.Especially in National Matriculation English Test(NMET),reading scores account for a large proportion,which is crucial to its success.However,there are few empirical studies on critical thinking skills and English reading classes in senior high school.Based on the cultivation of critical thinking skills in English reading class as the beginning point,the study observes its effect on English reading achievement in senior high school.According to Paul and Elder’s Critical Thinking Framework,critical thinking skills’ cultivation can be integrated into English reading class.Based on this theoretical framework,the researcher sets a four-step framework in English reading.In practice,the study explores two questions.Q1.Does critical thinking affect students’ English reading achievement in senior high schools? And if so,has it a positive influence? Q2.Which question types in reading comprehension have been significantly influenced?In this study,freshmen(88 students)of two parallel classes from NF senior high school,Class 3 and Class 12 as the experimental and control class respectively,are chosen as samples to conduct both quantitative and qualitative research methods as well as interviews and observation.The study lasts about 4 months.Before the study,students were tested by California Critical Thinking Skill Test(Chinese Version)and a reading pretest.The results showed that there was no significant difference in critical thinking skills and English proficiency between the two classes.In the whileexperimental stage,critical thinking skills’ cultivation was put into English reading class in the experimental class,while traditional teaching methods are applied to English reading classes in the control class as usual.After the study in the test of critical thinking skills and reading posttest,the average score of the experimental class was significantly higher than that of the control class in statistics in the both tests.Through further analysis,there was a big gap in the four question types,especially in detail and judgement.And critical thinking skills were positively and significantly correlated with students’ English reading achievement.Thus,the researcher draws a conclusion that critical thinking skills affect positively English reading scores.The researcher hopes that these findings could help teachers as well as students in the future.