A Design-Based Research To Cultivate High School Students' Critical Thinking Through Question Chain In English Reading Class

As a special question type,“question chain” is a sequence of highly effective and logical questions.The skillful use of question chain has been proven to be an effective way of cultivating students' critical thinking.This is the reason for which it has become the focus of foreign language teaching,especially in reading.Teachers' skillful use of this questioning strategy in English class can foster students' flexible and critical thinking as well as problem-solving ability.However,this teaching technique is a common challenge among middle school English teachers,especially novice teachers.To solve the problem,this study adopts “Design-based Research(DBR)” as the approach to help the novice teacher enhance design skills in question chain with the two rounds of practice.As directed in DBR,the study is expected to improve the novice teacher's teaching ability through iterative analysis,repeated instructional designs,practice and reflection.This four-step cyclic framework will guide the practice of the teaching design.The study aims to improve students' awareness and competence of critical thinking with the aid of well-designed question chains which are gained through text analysis and thematic context.The research questions are as follows: 1)In the observed conventional reading classes,does the teacher use question chain for questioning? 2)In English teaching,how do teachers train students' thinking skills through question chain that is designed and polished on the basis of text analysis and thematic context? 3)Does the use of question chain promote students' learning,particularly on critical thinking?In the research process,the author took Bloom's taxonomy as the theoretical support.Then the author designed question chain on the ground of Bloom's taxonomy,and gradually perfected it through two rounds of teaching practice with the aid of supervisor's and students' feedback from interview.From the study,the author found that the observed teacher seldom employed question chain in her own reading teaching,and students were not sufficiently trained with critical thinking in her class.To change the situation,,the author explored question chain design and practiced it.The tips of design and practice are as follows: question chain design should be based on text analysis;logical advancement and difficulty progression between questions are of great importance;prefabricated question chain must be adjusted in time according to the actual situation in class so as to facilitate the students to establish the effective thinking route to solve the problem.The use of question chain that is well-conceived and student-based can,to a certain degree,promote senior high school students' critical thinking.The instructional design and practice help to promote the professional growth of a qualified and reflective practitioner.