The Application Of Discourse Analysis Approach To English Reading Teaching In Secondary Vocational Schools

The SVS (Secondary Vocational School) students, majoring in Travel English, belong to a special community, whose inner world is extremely complex and whose psychology is "at the violent and stormy time". They have good pronunciation. However, their glossary reservation is insufficient and their English foundation is weak. They lack of relevant reading skills and strategies, being not interested in English and having unclear goals in English study. The author has made a questionnaire survey on the present situation of the teaching and learning of Travel English, on the light of the condition where the normal reading teaching model did obviously not benefit the students to enhance their synthesizing capacities. The author was attempting to know something about the SVS Travel English Major, i.e. English teachers' teaching views, students' opinions on English text teaching, the current teaching key points in English text teaching, and students' text learning methods. The author has carried out the relevant analysis of the experimental results to prove that the discourse analysis method is helpful for students to promote their reading ability, and the new method can enhance the students' interests and self-confidence in English reading.This research was undertaken to show that the discourse analysis approach (esp. the cohesion theory) is helpful for students to promote their reading ability. The author randomly chose two Vocational School classes (Travel English Class 0301 and Travel English Class 0302) from Changde Travel School of Hunan, where the author is working, to carry out a 7-month empirical study with comparative method. The whole population was 120. Of the two classes, Travel English Class 0301 was the experimental class, while Travel English Class 0302 was the control class. The experimental class adopted the discourse analysis approach in reading teaching classroom focusing on text analysis, while the control class followed the normal way of reading teaching classroom focusing on the vocabulary and grammar. Before the experiment, two hypotheses were addressed as follows: 1) the discourse analysis approach is helpful for students to promote their reading ability; 2) the discourse analysis approach can enhance the students' interests and self-confidence in English reading. In the process of the experiment, the experimental class carried out the discourse analysis approach in different procedures of reading. In pre-reading, students obtained the text background knowledge by reiteration. In while-reading, they rapidly held the main structure of the text from the macroscopic angle by skimming or scanning, and grasped the clues and details of the text by reiteration, reference, conjunction, etc. They consolidated the contents of the text further by cohesive devices. In post-reading, the expanding practice with the help of cohesive devices and rhythm could both raise student's interests in English reading and developed their creativity. Questionnaires were completed by the two classes before and after the study. The reading performance at the beginning and at the end of the term was measured and compared within the two classes. The quantitative analysis of pre- and post-tests revealed that the discourse analysis reading class scored higher than the control class, which means that the discourse analysis reading class developed their reading better than the control class. In addition, the qualitative analysis of the questionnaire shows that the discourse analysis approach can enhance the students' interests and self-confidence in English reading.It reaches the conclusion that that discourse analysis reading teaching class scored higher than the control class, and the approach of discourse analysis reading can be used in the secondary vocational school reading teaching so as to improve students' reading competence and enhance their interests and self-confidence in English reading.