A Study On Classroom Activities And Development Of Students’ Higher-Order Thinking In Teaching Junior High School English Reading

In recent years,the development and application of modern information technology,such as artificial intelligence and big data,have brought about profound changes in the way of knowledge acquisition and knowledge imparting.Traditional philosophy of education,educational system,educational content and methods have been unable to meet the individualized learning needs.Consequently,in an effort to meet the practical needs of talent training in the new age,there is an inevitable tide for the development of high-quality education in China to foster higher-order thinking of primary and secondary school students.Besides,English learning activities are nowadays regarded as the basic organized form of English classroom teaching,which can effectively achieve the combination of learning and thinking.Under this background,this paper takes junior high school English reading classroom activities as the research subjects to inquire into the implementation of junior high school English reading teaching in cultivating students’ higher-order thinking,in order to better train students’ thinking quality and help them form the necessary characters and key capabilities for lifelong learning and future social development.It can better foster students’ thinking capacity and help them shape the necessary characters and key capabilities in a rapidly developing society through clarifying the effect of English reading classroom activities towards the development of students’ higher-order thinking.The purpose of the study is to examine how to develop junior high school students’ higher-order thinking through English reading classroom activities.Firstly,based on existing literature and research achievement,this paper gives a definition of the key concepts,including: classroom activities,higher-order thinking and English reading,and mainly expounds the theoretical basis which are activity-based approach to English learning and Bloom’s revised taxonomy of educational objectives.Secondly,the present research takes classroom observation,qualitative analysis and case study as the main research methods to investigate the classroom activities of ten English reading classes recorded in a junior high school in Kunming city.Then,the present study attempts to answer the following two research questions:(1)From the perspective of activity-based approach to English learning,what are the characteristics of classroom activities in junior high school English reading classes?(2)How to develop students’ higher-order thinking through transferring and creating activities in junior high school English reading teaching?On the basis of above research questions and the systematic analysis towards the recordings of classroom activities applied in junior high school English reading teaching,the thesis draws the following conclusions:(1)From the perspective of the activity-based approach to English learning,there is a wide variety of classroom activities in junior high school English reading teaching,but the classroom activities in junior high English reading teaching show the general characteristics: the distribution frequency of the three types of activities is totally imbalanced;lack of coherence among classroom activities in English reading teaching;lack of depth in activity design in English reading teaching.(2)Among the three types of activities,it is plain to see that the transferring and creating activities in junior high school English reading class contribute to cultivating students’ higher-order thinking.However,it is important to note that the proportion of transferring and creating activities in reading class should be designed according to the actual situation of students and teaching objectives,but should not to be few or excessive.In the process of implementing transferring and creating activities,more attention should be paid to students’ subjectivity and teaching evaluation.Finally,based on the main findings of the present study and the relevant theoretical basis,the present research brings forth some teaching suggestions aimed at facilitating English teachers to better practice the activity-based approach to English learning and cultivate students’ higher-order thinking in the future English reading teaching.