A Study on the Integrated Unit Reading Teaching Strategy of High School English to Cultivate the Thinking Quality

Abstract

The thought trend of holistic education has emerged influenced by the Holism philosophy and the Gestalt psychology since the last century. And the learning theory, curriculum theory and pedagogy of holism have gradually emerged and improved. In China, the concept of core competence of English discipline was first put forward in the new English Curriculum Standard for Senior High School (2017), and then the unit design, which also attaches importance to the integration of unit content, has attracted more and more attention. And in recent years, many scholars proposed the integrated unit teaching approach in primary and secondary schools. The English Curriculum Standard for Senior High School (2017 Version 2020 Revision) states that teachers should set learning objectives, interpret reading texts and then design reading activities based on the integrated unit guided by the unit theme. Besides, the 2019 FLTRP senior high English textbooks, compiled based on the new English curriculum standard, are designed unit-theme-guided and also activity-driven. And the new textbooks’ reading activities of each unit are structured reflecting Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives in cognitive domain from lower-order thinking to higher-order thinking. In addition, reading teaching is the main way to develop students’ core competence in English class, and thinking quality reflects the mental characteristics of core competence in English. So it is worth further exploring how to comprehensively understand the new English textbooks and make good use of them in order to achieve the goal of cultivating the core competence of English discipline in reading class. Based on this, this paper points out the integrated unit reading teaching strategy of “Focus on logical thinking ability in Pre-reading; Cultivate critical thinking ability in While-reading; Develop creative thinking ability in Post-reading”. After that, the writer also elaborates on this strategy with specific reading text, aiming at exploring how to use the new textbooks to cultivate students’ core competence of English discipline in English reading teaching.