A Study On The Correlation Of Teachers' Questioning In English Reading Classroom And Students' Critical Thinking Disposition In Senior High School

Senior High School English Curriculum Standard(the 2017 edition)proposes to cultivate students' core competence in English,including thinking ability,language ability,learning ability,and cultural awareness.Critical thinking,as an important part of thinking ability,has gradually attracted the attention of researchers and front-line teachers of foreign language education and teaching in China.Some studies at home and abroad found that teachers' questioning not only serves as an important medium for interactions between teachers and students in daily teaching,but also promotes the development of students' critical thinking,and different types of teachers' questioning have different effects on students' critical thinking.Based on the current researches at home and abroad,the author found that domestic and foreign researches on teachers' questioning and critical thinking were mainly concentrated on the university level,and the targets were mainly foreign language majors.Therefore,it is necessary to conduct relevant research on senior high school students.Three senior high school English teachers and 174 students were selected as the participants in the present research.Through critical thinking disposition questionnaire,questionnaire of teachers' questioning,classroom observation and interview for teachers,this study is aimed at answering three questions:1.What are the features and types of senior high school teacher's questioning in English reading classroom?2.What is the situation of critical thinking disposition of the senior high school students?3.Is there any correlation between different types of teachers' questioning and students' critical thinking disposition? If yes,to what degree?The findings are summarized as below:(1)On the whole,in the senior high school English reading classroom,the proportion of low cognitive level questions(70.18%)asked by English teachers is much higher than high cognitive level questions(29.82).In terms of Bloom's six types of questions,Knowledge questions account for the largest proportion(56.04%),while Application questions the least proportion(2.83%).(2)In general,senior high school students' critical thinking disposition is at middle level,as the mean score of the overall score of criticalthinking disposition is 78.47(above the cut-off line 63).Among the seven dimensions of critical thinking disposition,students' score in Truth-seeking is relatively lower than other dimensions.(3)There is a statistically strong positive correlation between teachers' questioning and students' critical thinking disposition(r=.713);specifically,the correlation between high cognitive level questions and students' critical thinking disposition(r=.703)is stronger than that between low cognitive level questions and students' critical thinking disposition(r=.399).According to the research results,the author puts forward the following suggestions:(1)In order to better cultivate students' critical thinking disposition,schools should provide relevant training for teachers on how to cultivate students' critical thinking disposition through teachers' questioning in classroom.With the help of training,teachers' consciousness of cultivating students' critical thinking disposition through questioning is gradually increased,so as to better play the role of teachers' questioning in promoting students' critical thinking disposition.(2)To cultivate students' critical thinking disposition in English reading classroom,teachers should strengthen their awareness of employing more high cognitive level questions in their daily teaching based on the text.(3)To improve students' critical thinking disposition in the Truth-seeking,teachers are supposed to guide students to find out the answer or truth by themselves,and cultivate students' objectivity and independence in the process of pursing the facts or truths.