A Survey On High-school Students’ Critical Thinking Skills Cultivation In English Reading Teaching

Cultivating students’critical thinking（CT）is a common goal of education reform in the 21^stcentury.Senior high school（in short,SHS）education being the best years for students to develop their CT,the present condition about the critical thinking skills（CTS）of SHS students is found dissatisfying（Chen,2015）.Against this background,145 SHS English teachers from 8 schools in N city J province were put under investigation into a focus on three problems in English reading teaching（ERT）discussed:（1）What has characterized the current cultivation of students’CTS by teachers?（2）What problems are still apparent in the process of CTS cultivation in terms of teachers?（3）What factors influential in the students’CTS cultivation in English reading teaching from the perspective of teachers?The questionnaires are constructed,which based on the framework of CTS in Delphi Report（1990）and the factors influencing the CTS cultivation in basic education by Stapleton（2011）.Research contents include:the situation of CTS development in ERT and the affecting factors.Then three English reading lessons was observed by researcher from class 5 and 6 of X SHS in N city,and then recorded the actual reading teaching situation of CTS cultivation.Finally,combined with the results of questionnaires data and classroom observation,researcher randomly choose several teachers to analyze and discuss the views to obstacles the students’CTS cultivation.The research findings are as follows:the situation of CTS cultivation of teachers in ERT for SHS is poor,but the differences between the sub-skills cultivation are obvious.The proportion of analysis skills is the highest at 27%,the proportion of interpretation,explanation,evaluation and inference skills basically the same at 16%respectively,while the proportion of self-regulation skills is the lowest at 9%.The existed problems are that many teachers only analyze and sort out the information on the reading texts,but lacking the self-reflection and correction of thinking.Classroom observation shows that the cultivation of analysis skills and interpretation skills are better than other skills,but the self-regulation skills and evaluation skills are poor.The CTS development is affected by a variety of factors.Six teachers were interviewed,three teachers believe that they are mainly affected by the students’own language level and the National Matriculation English Test（NMET）,two teachers think that they are mainly affected by the school curriculum and the profession knowledge of CTS cultivation by themselves,and one teacher believes that they are mainly affected by the curriculum materials.Based on the above situation,this research puts forward three pedagogical implications.Firstly,the curriculum training goals should be optimized to develop students’CTS in ERT.As for teachers,they should attach importance of the development of CTS,and refine the training goal according to The Senior High School English New Curriculum Standard.Secondly,the professional development of teachers should be paid much attentions and continue to promote the process of CTS cultivation.School or education administrators need to incorporate CTS into the education curriculum system and establish seamless education practices;at the same time,develop continuing education and conduct a series of professional training for teachers.Thirdly,the external forces should be united to create a good environment for developing CTS.Skills development is affected by many external factors,so it needs the support of a good external environment.Including:appreciate loose education environment,reasonable and fair teacher evaluation system,and education reform that keeps pace with the times.