An Empirical Study on Chinese EFL Learners’ Critical Reading Strategies

Critical reading is of great importance in foreign language learning. This paper reports an empirical study on Chinese EFL learners’ critical reading strategies. The subjects were 120 senior high school English learners, and the instruments included a questionnaire and a reading test paper. Detailed analysis of the quantitative data by SPSS22.0 has yielded the findings as follows: (1) Most learners were in urgent need of training on the proper choice and use of critical reading strategies. (2) Significant differences were found to exist between high-score and low-score group regarding structure analysis, rhetoric analysis and holistic evaluation. (3) Both high score and low score learners were found be less skilled in using the strategy of background analysis. It is suggested that the positive critical reading strategies should be encouraged and fostered in English language teaching and learning