A Study On CET Reading Comprehension: Based On The Theories Of Context, Cohesion And Coherence

CET (College English Test) is a nation-wide test administered by the Higher Education Department of the Ministry of Education. The test aims to provide college students and teachers with a standard which can more objectively and accurately reflect the English proficiency of non-English major college students and can further serve the students. CET is divided into two bands, Band 4 and Band 6 and they are held twice a year respectively. With almost 20 years'development, CET has been more and more accepted by the higher education administration as well as different personnel departments. The score percentage of the reading section has been relatively high, especially after 2005, the percentage has been increased to 35%. Therefore, scores of reading section can influence the final result of the whole CET in a large degree. There have been a lot of studies on reading and reading skills but seldom can they form a systematic model. Most Chinese teachers still give their English lessons in a"bottom-up"way, and some prefer"top-down"way. Say nothing of textual theories. Some earlier studies have mentioned about cohesion and coherence, but none of them gave a more systematic way based on the combined theories of context, cohesion and coherence which actually are of equal importance to reading comprehension. This thesis aims to promote students'reading ability through the study of reading property, textual theories as context, cohesion and coherence. During the completion of this thesis, questionnaire survey, reading test and cooperative teaching experiment will be held; correlative data will be collected and sorted and analysed to prove that combined textual theories (context, cohesion and coherence) can obviously influence college English reading in a positive way. Different from the traditional studying method which has focused on cohesion and coherence and on their applications to reading, this thesis will introduce contextual theories into reading teaching especially situational context and cultural context,combining contextual, cohesive and coherent theories together and applying them to college English reading and finally prove that this new method will work better in improving college English reading teaching and studying than traditional methods.In the first part of this thesis, the author analyses the situation of domestic college English teaching, proposes a hypothesis that such textual theories of context, cohesion and coherence will be applied to college English teaching. Then through literature review, the author proposes the basic theoretical framework of this thesis. Next part is about the methodology which includes hypothesis, purposes, subjects and instruments. Chapter five is all about the teaching procedure and correlative data analysis. Through the combination of textual theories and teaching experiment, a new teaching method that applying context, cohesion and coherence to college English teaching will be proposed.