A Contrastive Study On Critical Thinking In The Reading Section Of NSEC And AWE

New National English Curriculum Standards for Common Senior High School(2017)points that the development of the quality of thoughts is conducive to students'improvement of the ability to analyze and solve problems so that they are able to observe and understand the world with a cross-cultural perspective.What's more,they can make the correct value judgments.While critical thinking is considered as an important factor that can reflect students' ability and level of the quality of thoughts,its importance is now taken for granted.The thesis compares two sets of senior high school English textbooks from the perspective of critical thinking,in order to analyze whether English textbooks of senior high school contribute to the development of critical thinking,and to summarize the differences and similarities between different sets of textbooks..The thesis hopes to bring a little help to textbook editors,teachers' practice,and related researches in the future.The thesis chooses two sets of high school English textbooks,which are widely used,as research objects.They are New Senior English for China and Advance with English.The reading section are central to the research.The detailed analysis is made from three aspects of reading texts,reading questions,and illustrations.And the thesis summarizes advantages and disadvantages of two sets of textbooks in cultivating critical thinking.Some implications are also discussed.The thesis uses the method of text analysis.By analysis and comparison of the reading section and contents,the following major findings are made:(1)In reading texts,NSEC refers to more wide-ranging topics but controversial topics are not included.(2)Two sets of textbooks reflect the cultivation of critical thinking ability in reading questions.However,they focus more on the skills of interpretation,analysis,and explanation.In AWE,interpretation skill is the main part.(3)Illustrations of NSEC are abundant and are strongly related to texts,which are more appropriate to develop critical thinking.The key implications of the research findings are as follows:Each of six sub-skills can't be ignored in English textbooks of senior high school and questions should be more targeted;Topics and contents of reading materials should be more critical,controversial and systematic;The special part of critical thinking can be added.