A Study On The Application Of Genre-based Teaching Approach In College English Reading Instruction

Reading is a complex process of cognition. With the development of researchin the field of psychology, applied linguistics and discourse linguistics, thediscussion about reading comprehension is becoming deeper and deeper. It isproposed that in order to achieve effective reading, the first task is to graspdiscourse structure knowledge, namely, the knowledge of the passage genre pattern.The“genre-based teaching approach”is set up on the basis of discourse genreanalysis, namely, applying the theories of genre and genre analysis to classroomteaching consciously, and carrying out teaching activities around the schematicstructure of texts. Its purpose is to help students cultivate genre awareness andimprove reading ability in a certain social and cultural context by offering them aseries of genre knowledge.It is well-known that genre-based approach has been widely applied in thehigh-level English teaching like English for Specific Purpose (ESP) and English forAcademic Purpose (EAP), as well as in the teaching of English writing andspeaking and has gained significant results. However, the studies, which focus onthe application of genre-based approach to college reading instruction, are very few,and the studies with the under intermediate leveled students as the subjects aremuch fewer. For this reason, the author makes this research paper titled“theapplication of genre-based teaching approach in college English readinginstruction”, with the under intermediate leveled students as the subjects, aiming tostudy the instructive importance of applying relevant genre theories to readinginstruction, explore means to combine the two, prove the effectiveness ofgenre-based approach applying in reading instruction, and further seek for effectiveways to improve college students’reading competence.In the thesis, the author first reviews the concepts, background anddevelopment of genre and genre analysis, as well as some relevant reading theories.After reviewing, the author briefly introduces the current situations of college English reading instruction, and then brings out the“genre-based teachingapproach”, which is under the guidance of genre analysis theory. Proceeding onthese bases, the author makes specific teaching experiment to test whether thisapproach is feasible and can improve students’reading speed and reading ability byadopting several methods, such as comparing control and experimental classes, datacollection, analysis and conclusion. After experiment, through analyzing therelevant data and results, the author gains a conclusion that the genre-basedteaching approach is of directive and instructive significance for college readinginstruction. Even if in the under intermediate level class, it is still superior to thetraditional teaching method, which is based on vocabulary and sentence pattern, andit can improve students’reading ability. Furthermore, the author suggests someimplications for English reading instruction in future as well, that is, teachers shouldcultivate the students’genre awareness and constantly apply the genre-basedapproach to reading instruction and analyze the text structure and text languagestyle through discourse genre analysis in order to improve the students’readingspeed and competence.