A Study Of The Application Of Relevance Theory In The English Reading Teaching In Senior High School

It is well-known that English has gradually become a kind of language used by people from all over the world.In the senior high school of our country,English is always an important subject which plays an important role in the college entrance examination.And reading comprehension takes up a lot of scores in many English exams,and it is also a key channel of knowledge input.By reading all kinds of magazines and articles or going through some news websites,enough knowledge input and language acquisition can be achieved.While,basing on generous surveys,the current situation in senior high school English class of our country is unpromising,and the traditional teaching method is still prevailing in English class all over the country.As for the traditional teaching method,teacher is the center of the class,and they impart the knowledge during the whole class.While students take notes for fear that they ignore something important,but it can not well adapt to the development of modern society.So,how to improve students’ reading skills more effectively has become the focus of English reading teaching.Many scholars hope to develop a more efficient teaching method to cultivate students’ reading ability,so a new method of English teaching based on relevance theory comes into being.But there are still some problems nowadays.For example,most of the researches and applications of the relevance theory take place in college English reading class but rarely are used in senior high school.Considering the deficiencies of the previous studies,this thesis aims to answer the following questions:(1)What’s the specific teaching model of the new English reading teaching method based on relevance theory?(2)How can the teaching model based on relevance theory be put into use in English reading class of senior high school?(3)What is students’ attitude towards the English reading teaching method based on relevance theory?Firstly,the thesis makes a review about studies of English reading abroad and at home,and then a review about researches on English reading based on relevance theory at home and abroad is also made.And then four kinds of reading models are introduced and the shortcomings of each reading model are analyzed.Secondly,the definition of the relevance theory and its theoretical basis are illustrated.Then,a three-month experiment is followed.The subjects are 100 students from two natural classes(one is experimental class and the other is control class)of the Xu Chang 8th high school.In experimental class,the teaching model based on relevance theory is adopted,and the traditional teaching method is used in control class.The research instruments of this experiment are reading comprehension test,questionnaire test and interview.After the experiment,the data are collected and analyzed by SPSS 20.0.The results show that the new teaching method based on relevance theory is indeed more effective in improving students’ reading ability and can activate students’ interest and enthusiasm of English learning more effectively.Finally,the implications and limitations of the research are illustrated and some suggestions for further research are put forward.Although the teaching methods based on relevance theory is proved to be more suitable for Chinese senior high school English reading teaching compared with traditional teaching methods,there are still some limitations and deficiencies.But as long as the great efforts are taken,the future of the English education will be brilliant and promising.