An Applied Study Of Cohesion Theory Into English Reading Class In Senior High School

Reading plays an important role in improving the comprehensive language competence. However, in traditional English educational systems for many years, more importance has been attached to lexical teaching and grammatical teaching which has caused the weak discourse analysis competence of students. And it also has limited the students' English level and influenced their improvement of comprehensive language competence in English learning. How can we change the current situations and improve students' competence? The author suggests that the Discourse Cohesion Theory, which is related to Discourse Analysis Theory, is an applicable approach to instruct the reading teaching in senior high school.First the author gives an introduction of the origin of Discourse Cohesion Theory and the related concepts. And then the author introduces the types of cohesion and shows how to distinguish them by using the examples. Then the author reviews the relevant literature and research at home and abroad, finding that some researches made by the earlier generation are intended for college teaching, some are only related to one of the types of cohesion. These cannot be directly applied to guide class teaching in senior high school. So the author offers the article, with the title of an Applied Study of Cohesion Theory into English Reading Class in Senior High School, hoping to combine theory with practice to explore a way of improving students' reading competence in senior high school.Before the experiment, first the author has analyzed the college entrance exam papers in recent years, finding out the following features in them and what abilities students are required in reading process:1) The exam focuses on the check of students' discourse analysis competence;2) The reading materials are becoming larger and larger, which means that the higher speed is required in reading;3) It also requires that students should be equipped with the competences of inferring from the co-text and dealing with vocabulary.Then a questionnaire has been designed to examine the problems in reading class. According to the questionnaire, the author analyzes the main reasons from two aspects of both teachers and students. The problems are as follows: students are lack of reading strategy; there is a low speed in reading process; There are so many words unknown to students in the reading process that they has influenced students' reading comprehension; students cannot get the main idea quickly during the reading which also leads to the low efficiency. Teachers centre on grammatical and lexical teaching but ignore the cultivation of students discourse analysis competence.Based on the analysis of the college entrance exam papers and the questionnaire, the author suggests that using the discourse cohesion theory to instruct reading teaching can promote the reading efficiency. Following the survey, the author has put forward the strategy of using the discourse cohesion theory to instruct English reading teaching. Finally, to verify the hypothesis, the author has conducted a teaching experiment for half a year.During the experiment, the author adopts the new approach, that is, the discourse cohesion theory, to guide the reading class teaching in the experimental class, while the control class employs the traditional instruction approach, which centres on lexical teaching and grammatical teaching. Except that the teaching approaches are of great differences, the two classes have the identical teaching material and exercise materials to go with the reading and the time for teaching is also equal, and the students in the two classes are also at the same level before the teaching experiment. The experiment is divided into three stages: In the first period, the basic knowledge of discourse cohesion theory is introduced to students to improve the students' discourse awareness, and the author also instructs the students how to distinguish all types of cohesion by giving good examples; In the second period, the author analyzes the structure of discourse in text interpretation by using the discourse cohesion theory; In the third period, the author consolidates the discourse cohesion theory by means of doing exercises once a week and gradually cultivates students' discourse analysis competence by themselves. According to the results, the students' English reading competence can be improved by using discourse cohesion theory to instruct the reading class teaching in senior high school during the experiment, meanwhile, the students also strengthen their discourse awareness and strategy awareness, and their reading speed is also improved. And we also find that students have more interest and confidence in reading.