An Action Research On Creative Tendency In Reading Teaching Of Junior High School With Visualized Thinking Tools

English Curriculum Standards for Compulsory Education(2022 Edition)clarifies that thinking capacity is one of the general objectives of the English curriculum.It proposes to develop students’ creativity.Creativity in the curriculum refers to students’ capacity to adapt and create under given target language and conditions(Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China,2022).Creative tendency is the personality quality of creativity,including curiosity,imagination,complexity,and risktaking(Willians,1979).Visualized thinking tools include thinking diagrams and thinking strategies,which are important means to help thinking become explicit.Currently,most of the research on visualization of thinking in the teaching field focuses on the promotion and application of the tools.However,there are few studies on the application of the tools in English reading classes to cultivate creative tendency.This dissertation applies the tools to investigate the effect of reading questions and activities on creative tendency to provide some inspiration for the development of English reading teaching under the new curriculum.This dissertation uses a two-round action research approach to explore the following two research questions:(1)Can visual thinking tools effectively improve the creative tendency of junior high school students? If so,which sub-dimensions can be enhanced,and to what extent have they been improved(curiosity,imagination,complexity,risktaking)?(2)How do visualized thinking tools help students improve their creative tendency by designing question chains and creative activities in reading? Hence,the pretest of creative tendency is defined as the current state of creative tendency and also as the research’s starting point.48 students in a junior high school in Chengdu were chosen by convenient sampling as participants.In this project,12-week,8-time(for 40 minutes each)reading classes are conducted.In the dissertation,questionnaires,interviews,and teaching journals were used for evaluation and observation.Specifically,this dissertation used the Williams Scale to pre-test students’ creative tendency first.And then the posttest was conducted after reading the teaching intervention.Next SPSS 26 was implemented to analyze the data of two tests.After two rounds of action research.In the first round of action research,the author first briefly introduces and trains the students on the classification and function of thinking diagrams.It is determined that the focus of the first round of research is to apply visualized thinking tools to the design of problem chains.The next four English reading classes will be used in practice;in the second round of action research,the focus of the research is to use the tools to design creative reading activities and apply them in the rest of the four English reading classes.The research results showed that(1)after 12 weeks of action research,the reading classes using the thinking visualization tool improved the total score of creative disposition ability,risk-taking,and imagination dimension scores.(2)Visualized thinking tools can be implemented in accordance with the following process in the design of reading problem chains: first,select thinking tools that can stimulate students’ curiosity and learning motivation;second,identify appropriate thinking strategies according to the genres and language characteristics,and reveal its complexity of the structure and value of the essay encourages students to answer questions and cultivates students’ quality of risk-taking;finally,the thinking strategy is transformed into question chains,which stimulates students’ imagination and encourages students to express their creative opinions.Visualized thinking tools can also be combined with reading creative activities to enhance students’ creative tendencies.First,choose thinking tools that can stimulate students’ imagination and curiosity,and stimulate students’ reading expectations;guide students to observe,think,and ask questions independently;Second,choose tools that properly explain the complexity of the article to help students reveal the emotional value of the article and theme significance;Students are encouraged to take risks and analyze the passage or express their own creative insights.Finally,according to the specific reading text,choose the appropriate thinking tools to engage students’ imagination and help students generate their creative ideas.This dissertation verified the hypothesis that visualized thinking tools can cultivate junior high school students’ creative tendencies overall in reading classes.English teachers can design question chains and conduct creative thinking activities with the tools to cultivate students’ creative tendencies.Based on that,the researcher suggests that teachers can use more visualized thinking tools to cultivate students’ creative tendency;Eight thinking maps and ten question sequences;recommend more interesting and innovative materials to students;leave students enough time and guidance to them.Students should have the awareness to improve their creative tendency;actively read the materials in and out of English reading classes.Textbook developers can add more introductions and strategies to use the tools;adapt rich reading activities like Projectbased learning into the new textbook.