A Study On The Application Of Discourse Analysis To English Reading Teaching In Senior High Schools

To development students'reading ability is one of the most important goals of the English teaching in senior high schools.Although the communicative ability is emphasized in the Teaching Syllabus of senior high middle schools, the traditional teaching method dominates the English reading class. The students under the guidance of grammar-based English reading teaching are limited within the recognition and decoding information at the micro-level of discourse, and neglect the macro-structure of one discourse. The discourse analysis theory introduces the concept of discourse into the teaching of language, and cultivates students'discourse awareness in order to make good use of the linguistic structure of discourse to get the understanding of the discourse system. The present study aims at examining the effects of discourse analysis in English reading teaching, and specifically answering the following research questions:What are the effects of discourse analysis?What are the effects of discourse analysis in English reading teaching?In what way does discourse analysis increase or decrease the reading proficiency of English reading?The research method of the present study includes test, questionnaire investigation and interview. The data are collected and analysis quantitatively and qualitatively. The participants are two parallel classes from the second year of senior high middle schools. In one semester's teaching experiment, the experimental group is guided by the discourse analysis teaching method, and the controlled group is guided by the traditional teaching method. The results of the pre-test and the post-test show that though the two groups are equal in reading proficiency before the experiment, there appear a obvious gap between the two groups after the experiment. The introduction of the knowledge of discourse by the English teacher make students in the experimental group can make good use of the background, cohesive devices knowledge and the context into the reading strategies to help understand the discourse in a more effective way. The discourse analysis is a more efficient teaching method in English reading teaching than traditional teaching.The present study has enriched the theory of discourse analysis as an approach to English reading teaching, but also enlightened the teaching of English writing and listening.