International Journal of Education

Discourse-level instruction plays a pivotal role in cultivating students’ cognitive abilities within junior high school English reading pedagogy. Utilizing the lesson “Improve Your Eating Habits” as a case study, this paper explores effective strategies for elevating students’ cognitive skills through text-based teaching. The research implements a suite of pedagogical techniques—including brainstorming, multi modal input, scaffolded questioning, mind mapping, discourse analysis, and contextualized output tasks—to design instructional activities targeting five key cognitive dimensions: agility, depth, logic, criticality, and creativity. Key findings indicate that brainstorming combined with multi modal input enhances cognitive processing speed. Question sequences focused on thematic meaning effectively deepen analytical depth, while mind mapping aids in structuring textual logic. Contextualized output tasks can collaboratively develop linguistic proficiency alongside critical and innovative thinking. Discourse teaching integrating these methods can significantly promote higher-order thinking development, providing practical insights for implementing English core competencies. Future research should investigate differentiated instructional strategies applicable across various text types and grade levels.

Discourse teaching; Cognitive abilities; Scaffolded questioning; Mind mapping