A Survey Study On Teachers’ Use Of Reading Comprehension Questions In EPE Junior High School English Textbooks Go For It To Develop Students’ Critical Thinking Ability

Critical thinking ability is the key ability for students to cope with future social development and challenges.In the newly promulgated "General High School English Curriculum Standards（2017 Edition,2020 Revision）",it is clearly stated that emphasis should be placed on cultivating and developing students’ critical thinking skills.At present,the relevant research on the cultivation of critical thinking ability is mostly concentrated in the fields of reading and writing teaching,and it is rarely seen in the field of teaching materials,especially the research on junior high school students.Junior high school students are in the critical transition period of thinking quality from "experience type" to "theoretical type".Cultivating critical thinking ability can not only help students develop critical thinking as soon as possible,develop the habit of thinking,but also lay a solid foundation for the development of thinking ability in high school and university.Textbooks are the main medium for students to acquire knowledge,and also an important resource for teachers to cultivate students’ critical thinking ability.In this study,text analysis and survey methods were used.On the basis of analyzing the distribution of reading comprehension problem types in the English textbook Go For It for junior high school students taught by five teachers,we investigated the use of textbooks among 40 junior high school English teachers in three schools in Shanxi Province.The problems existing in the process of cultivating students’ critical thinking ability and their causes,and then put forward suggestions for effectively using these problems to cultivate students’ critical thinking ability.This study answers three research questions.First,Among the reading comprehension questions of the English textbooks for junior high school students,what are the problems of cultivating students’ "thinking ability" ?What is the distribution in the textbooks for each grade? Second,What is the current status of teachers using these reading comprehension questions to cultivate students’ "thinking ability" ? Third,How can teachers use the reading comprehension questions in the textbook to cultivate students’ "thinking ability" ?The research results show that: 1.There are 371 reading comprehension questions in the PEP version of the junior high school English textbook Go For It.The distribution of display-type,reference-type and evaluation-type reading comprehension questions in the textbooks for each grade is as follows:34.48%,37.93%,27.58% for the first volume of the seventh grade;67.31%,3.85%,48.39% for the second volume of the seventh grade;40.51%,17.72%,41.77%;8th grade 2nd volume 43.33%,21.11%,53.55%;9th grade 35.77%,21.14%,43.09%.2.Junior high school English teachers do not pay much attention to the cultivation of students’ critical thinking ability.Influenced by "exam-oriented education",in actual teaching,teachers pay more attention to the reading comprehension problems of examinations,and seldom use the reading comprehension problems in textbooks to cultivate students’ critical thinking ability,and there are behaviors cultivated in an unconscious state.3.Junior high school English teachers should improve their awareness of critical thinking ability and rationally use reading comprehension questions in textbooks;textbook writers can appropriately set reading articles that are close to students’ lives and add assessment questions.