An Empirical Study On The Application Of Discourse Analysis In English Reading Teaching For Non-english Majors

Reading activity is one of the indispensable activities in human communication. It is a vital channel for human beings to grasp linguistic knowledge and get information. For students, the reading ability largely determines the amount which they can get. However, current English reading teaching mainly focuses on the explanation of words and sentences, under such model, students are trained to pay more attention to single word, phrase and sentence, ignore the connection of sentences and paragraphs, they have difficulty in discovering the main idea of a text. This reading method adopted by students'results in their excessive reliance on teachers, at the same time it has very negative consequences for English reading.The aim of the English reading course is to enhance the students' skill of reading, enlarge their vocabulary, improve their grammar knowledge, and obtain all kinds of knowledge, so as to foster the students'reading ability. It is obvious that the traditional reading teaching model can't enhance the students'reading ability. With such realistic condition the author made a questionnaire survey on the present English reading teaching situation of non-English majors in vocational university.The author was attempting to know something about the real situation of non-English majors'English reading teaching:English teachers'teaching views; students'interest in English reading and their opinions on English reading teaching. And then the author analyzed the results of this questionnaire, further testifying:compared with traditional reading teaching, the discourse analysis teaching model is better to reach the requirement of the English reading teaching. Under this teaching model, students view the discourse as a whole, based on discourse theories, students can catch the writer's attitude, understand the text's structure, and get the message the text intends to convey.In this thesis, starting from the basic concept of discourse analysis, the author expounds the basic theory of discourse analysis, English reading teaching and some relevant terms. It mainly explores how to use context, coherence and cohesion in English reading teaching to help students to understand the background, structure and main idea of the English reading materials, thus to improve students' reading comprehension ability.With such thought the author applies discourse analysis English reading teaching model in the following English reading teaching in the experimental class. In the model of discourse analysis, the whole process of reading teaching falls into three stages:pre-reading stage, background knowledge and some other relevant knowledge are introduced before reading in this stage, this is helpful to arouse students' interest and motivation; then comes the while-reading stage, at this stage, students are led to find out the text structure and the main idea through skimming from a macroscopic perspective, and the same time the students are taught to pay attention to signals of cohesive, hence to reach a detailed interpreting of a text; the following is the post-reading stage, At the final stage---post-reading, students are required to judge on the quality, value, accuracy and truthfulness of information by evaluating the effect the author wishes to produce. This is helpful to improve students'English comprehensive abilities. Through such all-round training in English reading under the discourse analysis model, the author believes that the students can get better and direct improvement in English reading ability.In order to check the author's viewpoint of "the discourse analysis approaches helpful for students to improve their reading ability." the author randomly chose two non-English major classes, as a total 87 students to carry out an 8-week empirical study with comparative method. The experimental class (EC) has 43 students; the control class (CC) has 44 students. Discourse analysis reading method was introduced into the experimental class, which focuses on the text analysis; while the control class followed the normal way of reading teaching that focuses on the vocabulary and grammar. Considering the reliability of the research, the author adapt multi research methods, such as quantitative analysis methods of the pre-tests and post-tests, and the qualitative analysis methods of the questionnaires, after collected all the information, the author use the SPSS to undergo the statistic analysis. From the analysis of the pre-tests-and post-tests, it revealed that the experimental class scored higher than the control class, this means that the students in discourse analysis reading class have developed their English reading ability better than those in the control class. In addition, the questionnaire analysis shows that the discourse analysis approach can enhance the students' interest and self-confidence in English reading.