An Action Research On Using Self-questioning To Improve Junior High School Students’ Critical Thinking Dispositions In English Reading Class

Critical thinking ability is an important element of the Thinking Quality in the Core Competences of English subject,and critical thinking dispositions(CTDs)promote the use of critical thinking skills and constitute critical ability.Students’ self-questioning helps to promote the development of their thinking and CTDs.Questions-Answer Relationships(QAR)constructed by Taffy Raphael is recognized as an effective self-questioning strategy.However,few studies have focused on the role of self-questioning strategies in the development of junior high school students’ CTDs.In view of the above,through adding QAR strategy into daily reading teaching,observing data collection,analyzing and evaluating effects,this research takes action research and intends to answer the following research questions: 1)Does the use of QAR in English reading teaching in junior high school enhance students’ CTDs(curiosity,openness,confidence,integrity,perseverance)? How? 2)What difficulties are there in using QAR strategy to improve students’ CTDs in English reading teaching? What are further improvements?The action research was carried out in three rounds for 9 weeks,and 45 Grade Seven students were selected from a junior high school.Research tools such as observations,interviews and logs were adopted.In the first round of action research,researchers explained and guided students to ask QAR questions gradually.The second round of research optimized the QAR strategy to improve students’ critical thinking dispositions by using QAR Sheet,Reading Battles,Think-Pair-Share and Mind Mapping.The third round of research added Prediction and Summary Writing on the pre-reading and post-reading Summary Writing to form a complete reading mode of QAR strategy,aiming to improve students’ CTDs as a whole.Finally,a log was conducted,showing a feedback the application of QAR Strategy.The results show that: 1)Before the action research,mojority of the students had positive attitude towards English reading and preferred trying to use QAR strategy while some showed the insufficient CTDs in curiostiy,confidence and perseverance.After the action research,the students’ CTDs have been generally improved.Specifically,classroom observations results show that at pre-reading phase,the students proposed more Author & Me and On My Own questions showing their curiosity and confidence;During while-reading phase,the students proposed more Right There and Think & Search questions showing their integrity;During post-reading phase,they presented the CTDs in openness and integrity by asking more Author & Me questions.Results from the interviews and logs show that most students thought the QAR strategy has improved their CTDs in curiosity,openness and confidence.And the fact of transferring QAR strategy to related reading activities also showed the CTDs in perseverance.2)In order to solve the problems such as inappropriate use of QAR,imperfect QAR for junior high school students,optimized QAR strategy were used,that is,the students’ curiosity were aroused by predicting before reading.Students were trained to be open,upright,persistent and confident through QAR Sheet and Reading Battle while reading.After reading,students were evoked to be curious,open and persistent through Summary Writing,Think-Pair-Share and Mind Mapping.Based on the conclusions and limitations of this action research such as duration of time,size of subjects and type of genre,this study then proposes that self-questioning should be student-oriented,and integrate critical thinking skills and CTDs in classroom teaching.What’s more,the reading materials should cover different topics and genres to promote the development of CTDs.