An Action Research On Facilitation Of Development In Students’ Thinking Ability By English Literature Reading In High School From The Perspective Of Activity Theory

Currently,English teaching in senior high focuses on the development of language ability,paying scant attention to thinking ability and cultural awareness.This is far from the teaching objectives of developing students’ logical,critical and creative thinking ability as proposed in the National English Curriculum Standards for General Senior High School(Edition 2017,Revision2020).The new curriculum standards advocate the development of students’ thinking ability through reading teaching.Literature reading is rich in humanistic connotation,ideological and interest as one of the important types of reading.The deep reading of literary works guided by activity theory promote students’ deep thinking and help the realization of the educational value.Therefore,from the perspective of activity theory,this study proposed an action research on the implementation of teaching reading of literary works concerning this issue,aiming at solving the authentic problems of developing students’ thinking ability.The action research proposed two research questions as follows:(1)How does literature reading cultivate students’ thinking ability across the stages of cognition,comprehension,analysis,application,creativity,and evaluation?(2)In what ways do students’ logical thinking,critical thinking,and creative thinking ability change as a result of their engagement in literature reading?The participants in this research were 52 students in a class of Grade 1of a senior high school in Guiyang,Guizhou Province.The 16-week action research guided students to develop from lower-order to higher-order thinking skills through a series of learning activities ranging from reading comprehension to evaluative output,and gradually contributed to the developing from thinking skills to thinking abilities.This research employed research instruments such as questionnaires,interviews,teaching logs,and classroom observations to make adjustments of the action design and teaching strategies based on the collected data.The following findings were drawn:(1)the students greatly improve thinking skills through literature reading,which is reflected in their skills to accurately obtain and sort out information,analyze characters,and express their opinions appropriately;(2)the students show the great improvements in thinking ability through literature reading,especially in the development of logical,critical and creative thinking,and students are able to use various skills to understand the logic and themes of the literature works.In addition,this action research provided some pedagogical implications,the teaching of literature reading aiming to develop students’ thinking ability should:(1)use reading strategies flexibly to enhance thinking ability;(2)insist on student-centered and activity-oriented;(3)optimize the selections of literature materials and expand curriculum resources.