Abstract：Innovation is the soul of a nation. And the key to cultivate students’ innovation is to cultivate their critical thinking. Reading teaching is a significant part of language teaching in middle schools and it is also an important approach to cultivate students’ critical thinking. This thesis is based on Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives. Classroom observation, interview and case analysis are adopted to answer the three research questions:  first, whether teachers in middle schools have the awareness to cultivate students’ critical thinking or not? And what manifestations do they have? Second, in reading teaching, what approaches do teachers use to cultivate students’ critical thinking? Third, what problems or difficulty do teachers in middle schools have in their reading teaching? The research indicates that English teachers in middle schools have awareness to cultivate students’ critical thinking in their reading teaching and they have tried many teaching strategies and approaches to achieve this goal, such as brainstorming, mind-mapping, schema, questions of different dimensions and levels, etc, which makes students think positively and also makes classroom atmosphere active.

Key words: reading teaching critical thinking Bloom’ Cognitive Taxonomy

Content

摘要：

Abstract:

Chapter One  Introduction-5

1.1 Research Background-5

1.2 Research Purpose-6

1.3 Significance of the Research-6

1.4 Structure of the Dissertation-7

Chapter Two Literature Review-8

2.1 Critical Thinking-8

2.1.1 The General Introduction to Critical Thinking-8

2.1.2 Critical Thinking Skills and Critical Thinking Disposition-10

2.2 Critical Reading-11

2.2.1 The General Introduction to Critical Reading-11

2.2.2 Critical Reading Strategies-12

2.3 Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives-13

2.3.1 The General Introduction to Bloom’s Taxonomy-13

2.3.2 Reading and Cognitive Process-14

Chapter Three Methodology-15

3.1 Research Questions-15

3.2 Participants-16

3.3 Research Methods-17

3.3.1 Methods for Data Collection-17

3.3.2 Data Analysis Method-20

Chapter Four Findings and Discussions-21

4.1 Teachers’ Awareness and Behaviors to Cultivate Students’ Critical Thinking-21

4.2 Ways to Cultivate Students’ Critical Thinking-23

4.2.1 Brainstorming-23

4.2.2 Mind-map and Schema-24

4.2.3 Stratified and Diversified Questions-24

4.2.4 Challenging Tasks-25

4.3 Problems to Be Solved-25

Chapter Five Conclusion-25

5.1 Implications of the Research-25

5.2 Limitations of the Research-26

Appendix-26

Appendix Ⅰ Questions in Teacher L’s class-27

Appendix Ⅱ Questions in Teacher G’s class-28

Bibliography-29

Anderson, L. W.& Krathwohl, D. R. A taxonomy for learning, teaching, and assessing: A revision of Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives[M]. New York: Addison Wesley Longman, 2001-29

Acknowledgements-31