A Study On The Application Of Question Chain In Junior High School English Reading Teaching

English reading is an important part of English teaching and plays an important role in improving students’ English language ability.In Chinese middle school English teaching,reading is regarded as a priority.However,in traditional English reading teaching,there is a bad teaching tendency such as “reading by teaching”,“teaching by examination” and“thinking by reciting”,which is not conducive to the development of students’ intelligence and non-intelligence factors.As a teaching tool derived from classroom questioning,question chains are designed for classroom teaching problems.It designs a series of hierarchical and logical questions from the perspective of students,so that students can realize the self-construction of the text step by step from the simple to the deep,in line with the educational concept of the new curriculum reform.Therefore,this study applies question chain to junior high school English reading classrooms and intends to investigate two questions:(1)How does question-chain-based English reading teaching affect junior high school students’ critical thinking competence?(2)How does question-chain-based English reading teaching affect junior high school students’ critical reading competence?Based on constructivism and zone of proximal development,this study adopts questionnaires,interviews and action research as the main research methods to conduct two rounds of action research on a junior high school class six grade two in Z city,F province.It applies problem chain to junior high school English reading teaching and investigates its effects on students’ critical reading competence and critical thinking competence.The first round is the attempt and exploration stage of question chain,focusing on students’ awareness of question chain,trying to use question chain to stimulate students’ interest in reading and develop students’ critical thinking competence and critical reading competence;the second round is the adjustment and improvement stage of question chain,focusing on how to design more logical and hierarchical question chain to further develop students’ critical thinking competence and critical reading competence.The study lasts for three months,during which students journals,students interviews,and teachers interviews are collected as the basis for the qualitative research analysis.At the end of the action research,the before-and-after questionnaire data and the before-and-after reading comprehension test score data are compared and analyzed using SPSS 26.0.After three months of action research,the results show that:(1)The question-chain-based middle school English reading class had a positive impact on students’ critical thinking competence.Through the collected students interviews and students journals,most of the students indicate that the question chain is helpful to their English reading,stimulating them to think further,gradually guiding them to analyze,judge,answer questions and make arguments from different perspectives,effectively promoting the development of thinking,activating and enriching thinking.(2)The problem-chain-based middle school English reading class is conducive to developing students’ critical reading competence and improving their reading performance.By setting up referential question chains in the while-reading stage,it helps students exercise their abilities of analysis,reasoning,judgment and prediction,so that they can read discourses critically and no longer stay only with superficial language knowledge,which effectively improves their critical reading ability.In addition,this study suggests the following pedagogical implications: first,designing question chain from shallow to deep and in a progressive manner;second,emphasizing the cultivation of critical thinking skills and paying attention to students’ individual differences;third,focusing on cultivating students’ critical reading skills and improving their reading literacy.