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Theme-Rheme Theory And Senior High English Reading Instruction

Posted on:2008-04-01Degree:MasterType:Thesis
Country:ChinaCandidate:S Y QuanFull Text:PDF
GTID:2167360242959130Subject:Foreign Linguistics and Applied Linguistics
Abstract/Summary:PDF Full Text Request
Reading has been generally accepted as the core of foreign language teaching in the senior school in the Chinese context. However, the teaching of English reading is currently rather unsatisfactory. The reason might be that the traditional teacher-centered way of teaching has long been adopted, which leads to students' incompetence in reading comprehension. For instance, they find it difficult to make sense of the information or message of a text, and fail to grasp the attitude of the author and so on. To solve these problems, this paper discusses how English teachers in China use the" Theme-Rheme" theory to instruct reading in senior high school. Through a comparison of the effect between the traditional teaching method and the Theme-Rheme theory in the reading class for grade two students in senior school, the researcher believes that the Theme-Rheme theory does work better in the Chinese context. This paper proposes that the Theme-Rheme theory is an effective one in English reading, and elaborates the application of the Theme-Rheme theory to English course in senior school. Besides, from the result of experiment, the researcher found that the students have greatly improved their reading level.This paper consists of six chapters. Chapter one firstly makes an introduction to current situation of reading instruction in senior school. It mainly focuses on the importance of reading instruction in high school and the requirements and features in English reading, and makes an analysis of the students' reading problems and the teachers' teaching problems in high school. The thesis attempts to find a more effective way to help senior students improve their English reading comprehension.Chapter two makes a literature interview of the nature of reading and the Theme-Rheme Theory. Firstly, the nature of reading and definition of reading comprehension are introduced; then some information about three models of reading comprehension: top-down processing, bottom-up processing and interactive processing. After that, the Theme-Rheme Theory is introduced and its relative information is concerned.Chapter three centers on the application of Theme-Rheme Theory in the reading instruction. Through the analysis of Theme-Rheme Theory in the reading comprehension, students can find it easy to master the structure and the main idea of a discourse, even understand the attitude of the writer and get further information through judgments.Chapter four shows a research report which focuses on the procedure of the research, which involves the rational, purpose, research design and the analysis of collected data in the research. Next is a discussion about the effect of Theme and Rheme analysis approach on the experimental class.Chapter five provides implications for English reading teachers, in which the author argues that the application of the Theme-Rheme structure analysis in the classroom proves to be successful and fruitful in improving students' reading comprehension ability, and claims the implications for senior English reading teaching in future as well.In the last chapter, some limitations in this research are given, because no research method is perfect. In a word, the Theme-Rheme analysis approach is a better and more effective way to help students improve their reading comprehension, and the findings of the research will offer some insights into future reading study.
Keywords/Search Tags:Theme-Rheme theory, reading comprehension, discourse, reading instruction
PDF Full Text Request
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