An Experimental Study On Continuation Writing Teaching In Senior High Schools From The Perspective Of Discourse Cohesion

As the reformed question type of writing,“continuation writing” examines students’ comprehensive language competence and thinking skills.The primary teaching aim of continuation writing is to train students’ abilities of writing well-organized,coherent and integrated discourse.However,in the teaching of continuation writing,high school teachers place emphasis rather on the importance of the accuracy and appropriateness of words,grammar and tense,and frequently ignore the practice of discourse cohesion,which results in negative impacts on the clarity and fluency of students’ compositions.In order to solve the problem,the study applies Halliday and Hasan’s discourse cohesion theory to continuation writing teaching in senior high schools to explore its effectiveness.The research subjects are selected from two parallel classes of students in grade one from Ximu Senior High School in Haicheng Country.The research adopts the mixed design which includes questionnaire,test,and interview to carry on the research,which lasts for twelve weeks.The three research questions are:（1）What is the influence of the application of discourse cohesion theory to continuation writing teaching in senior high schools on students’ interest in continuation writing?（2）What is the influence of the application of discourse cohesion theory to continuation writing teaching in senior high schools on students’ writing strategies of continuation writing?（3）What is the influence of the application of discourse cohesion theory to continuation writing teaching in senior high schools on students’ writing ability in continuation writing?The findings indicate that applying discourse cohesion theory to the continuation writing teaching in senior high school is conducive to effectively improving students’ interest and confidence in continuation writing,which further stimulates students’ initiative,motivation and potential of continuation writing.Besides,the continuation writing teaching based on discourse cohesion theory can effectively improve students’ writing strategies of continuation writing,with the most striking disparities in the aspects of discourse cohesion among the experimental class and the control class.In addition,the awareness and frequency of the employment of using cohesive devices vary depending on different levels.Finally,the continuation teaching mode in this research not only contributes to enhancing students’ overall capacity of continuation writing,but also generates the direct effect on grammatical and lexical cohesion.This experimental study intends to make recommendations on how to improve the teaching level of continuation writing.