An Investigation On Critical Thinking Skills Training In English Reading Classes In Senior High School

In the high information era,critical thinking has become one of the most important educational goals and the hot topics in education and teaching research at home and abroad.The High School English Curriculum Standards(2017 Edition)clearly states that the thinking quality including critical thinking is an important component of the core English literacy,and emphasizes the development of students’ thinking quality.Because of close relationship between language and thinking,it’s the increasingly urgent need that training critical thinking skills should be emphasized and there is an indispensable trend of English language and teaching research to improve critical thinking abilities through English reading classes.Therefore,through classroom observation,teachers’ interview and questionnaire,this paper investigates the present situation of critical thinking skills cultivation in reading teaching of Hainan W High School,and discusses the following three questions:(1)What is present situation of critical thinking skills cultivation in English reading teaching in W High School?(2)What is the effect of cultivating critical thinking skills in English reading teaching in W High School? What sub-skills of critical thinking skills have been developed?(3)What are problems and solutions in the cultivation of critical thinking abilities in English reading teaching in W high school?Through data collection and analysis,the study finds that:(1)In terms of present situation of training critical thinking skills in English reading classes,English teachers of W high school relatively pay attention to the cultivation of critical thinking skills as well as mainly combine the reading teaching with some sub-skills such as interpretation,analysis,evaluation and explanation.Besides,the teachers mainly adopt lead-in and pre-reading,understanding text at while-reading,thinking and evaluating at post-reading to carry out the critical reading class for developing students’ critical thinking skills.(2)In terms of the cultivation effect,there is the overall moderate effect of reading teaching on the cultivation of students’ critical thinking abilities.Teachers mainly cultivate students’ critical thinking sub-skills such as interpretation,analysis and explanation.(3)Some problems occur in developing critical thinking abilities in English reading classes of W High School: English teachers ignore the cultivation of students’ evaluation and reflection abilities;the reading teaching mode of critical thinking abilities cultivation is single;teacher’s feedback to students’ reading is not comprehensive.Finally,according to the existing problems in developing critical thinking skills in English reading teaching,this paper analyzes the causes and puts forward corresponding suggestions,in order to help English teachers to effectively carry out critical reading and improve students’ critical thinking skills and core competence.