A Practical Study on Cultivating Critical Thinking Ability in Senior High School English Reading Teaching

Abstract

Against the backdrop of the reform of basic education curriculum and the teaching oriented by core competencies, critical thinking, as the core of higher-order thinking abilities, is highly consistent with the cultivation goal of "thinking quality" among the core competencies of senior high school English. This paper addresses the practical predicaments existing in current senior high school English reading teaching, such as "teaching objectives weakening the orientation of thinking cultivation, teaching methods restricting the space for thinking development, and teaching evaluation ignoring the consideration of thinking processes". It systematically expounds the value implications of critical thinking cultivation in developing students' lifelong competencies, reconstructing the classroom ecology, and connecting with the evaluation requirements of the College Entrance Examination. Based on the research results of critical thinking at home and abroad and teaching practice experience, this paper constructs an implementation process for cultivating critical thinking in senior high school English reading teaching, namely "Prediction - Analysis - Questioning - Inference - Summary - Evaluation". Taking "A Boy’s Best Friend" from the textbook published by Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press as an example, the paper details the specific application of this process in reading teaching. Teaching practice shows that the in-depth integration of critical thinking training and language learning can effectively promote students' transformation from knowledge receivers to independent thinkers, and realize the coordinated development of language ability and thinking quality.