Language ability, thinking quality, and reading instruction

We discussed the phenomenon of "overcorrection" among frontline teachers in cultivating students' deep thinking skills after incorporating thinking qualities into the core competencies of English learning in the 2017 edition of the National Curriculum Standards for Ordinary High School English. This has led to the neglect of language skill development. Emphasizing the close relationship between language and thinking, it is pointed out that language learning promotes the development of thinking, and thinking ability affects language learning. The Curriculum Standards believe that English language proficiency is the foundation of the core literacy of the English subject, and thinking qualities reflect mental characteristics. Improving English language proficiency helps students broaden their international perspectives and ways of thinking, and engage in cross-cultural communication. English reading classes not only cultivate students' thinking qualities, but also serve as an important way to impart language forms and knowledge. Reading instruction is a process of orderly transformation between language and thinking. The acquisition of thinking outcomes relies on language carriers, and the enrichment of language carriers relies on the expansion of thinking outcomes. To achieve the mutual transformation of language and thinking, teachers need to take thinking as the core and organize reading teaching through effective language activities, promoting the integrated development of students' language ability and thinking quality.

Problems and improvement suggestions

An in-depth analysis was conducted on the practical issues of integrating language teaching and thinking cultivation in current frontline teachers' reading teaching, and specific improvement suggestions were proposed. Firstly, it is emphasized that language objectives should be clearly defined in teaching objectives. It is pointed out that some teachers neglect the description of language knowledge and skills when writing teaching objectives. It is suggested that teachers focus on analyzing language expression and characteristics when analyzing discourse, and incorporate core language knowledge into teaching objectives. Secondly, it is suggested that language preparation should be done in the introduction stage, and teachers should design tasks based on the language content in the video to guide students to focus on target vocabulary related to the theme meaning. Furthermore, it is suggested that language knowledge should be emphasized in learning comprehension activities. It is suggested that teachers should not only guide students to obtain, organize, summarize, and integrate information from the discourse when designing mind maps, but also identify key word blocks that describe the topic and obtain language knowledge related to the topic from the discourse. In addition, it is emphasized that language quality should be grasped in practical activities. It is suggested that teachers require students to use mind maps or tables to organize key information, and then require them to carry out descriptive or retelling language activities based on the organized content, and provide language support to ensure the quality of students' language output. Finally, it is suggested that in transfer innovation activities, the use of the target language should be ensured. It is suggested that teachers refine the evaluation of language knowledge use when designing peer evaluation forms, require the use of target vocabulary or chunks, adjust the weight of thinking and language scores, promote thinking improvement, and implement meaningful language activities.

conclusion

Teachers should integrate language ability and thinking quality in reading teaching, promote students to experience language use, perceive structures, and apply learned language in understanding discourse and exploring thematic meanings through comprehension and expression language activities, and achieve mutual transformation and supplementation between language and thinking.