Action Research On Cultivating Senior High School Students’ Higher Order Thinking Skills From The Perspective Of Activity-based English Learning

The English Curriculum Standards for General Senior High Schools(2017 edition,2020 revision)proposed to cultivate students’ thinking quality,especially higher order thinking skills and developed the skills to think logically,critically and creatively.However,there are many factors in the current senior high school English reading teaching that are not conducive to cultivating students’ higher order thinking skills and limit the development of students’ thinking skills.The new curriculum standard puts forward the perspective of activity-based English learning based on the six elements of course content and clarifies that activities are the basic form of English learning,which can promote the development of students’ thinking skills.Therefore,this research applies the perspective of activity-based English learning to reading teaching and explores a effective way to cultivate senior high school students’ higher order thinking skills by action research.Based on Bloom’s taxonomy,constructivist and activity theory,this research puts forward three questions: 1.What is the current situation of senior high school students’ higher order thinking skills? 2.Does reading teaching based on the perspective of activity-based English learning influence the development of senior high school students’ higher order thinking skills? If so,what are the aspects? 3.Can reading teaching based on the perspective of activity-based English learning improve senior high school students’ reading level? In order to explore the above questions,this research uses a combination of questionnaires,interviews,reflection journal and tests to conduct four months action research on students in class 28,senior one.Both quantitative and qualitative studies jointly explore the impact of reading teaching based on the perspective of activity-based English learning on senior high school students’ higher order thinking skills and reading level.The results show that senior high school students’ higher order thinking skills are at a low level,but reading teaching based on the perspective of activity-based English learning is effective in cultivating senior high school students’ higher order thinking skills and reading level.After action research,students’ higher order thinking skills change significantly,especially critical thinking skills compared with the previous study.And students’ reading comprehension and five-of-seven reading questions scores are also improved,which shows that students can be analyze the logical structure of the discourse and students’ reading level is gradually improved in reading teaching.Meanwhile,this research brings some insights for developing students’ higher order thinking skills: First,teachers should have the awareness of developing students’ higher order thinking skills and design teaching activities to develop students’ thinking skills.Second,teachers should pay attention to the differences of students’ higher order thinking skills and design the difficulty of learning activities reasonably to promote the development of overall students’ thinking skills.Third,teachers should clarify the direction of cultivating students’ higher order thinking skills,focus on formative assessment in the teaching process and realize the unity of teaching,learning,and assessment.