The Application Of Conceptual Metaphor To English Reading Teaching In Middle Schools

The essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms ofanother (Lakoff,1980). Metaphor is not only a linguistic phenomenon, but also a way of thinking.The fact that the application of Conceptual Metaphor to English reading comprehensionfrom lexical, textual and cultural aspect contributes new insights into English reading teaching.Through a controlled experiment, the author tries to prove that the application of ConceptualMetaphor to English reading teaching in middle schools is practical and effective. Firstly, apre-test is done to test the reading comprehension level of two groups, the control group and theexperimental group. After that, SPSS will be used to analyze the statistics, and then draw theconclusion that there is no significant difference between the reading comprehension levels oftwo groups. It means that the reading comprehension ability of two groups is of the same level.The second step is a14-lesson main experiment. Without other variables, Conceptual Metaphor isembedded in teaching the experimental group and Task-based Language Teaching in the controlgroup as many other classes. Thirdly, a post-test will be done to test the reading comprehensionlevel of two groups. Statistics analysis with SPSS shows that there is significant differencebetween two groups and that the level of the experimental group is higher than that of the controlgroup. To sum up, Conceptual Metaphor can be applied to English reading comprehension inmiddle schools, and helps to improve students’ reading comprehension level in three ways: wordsand expressions, text coherence, and culture.There are altogether five chapters in the thesis. The first chapter is an introduction includingthe research background, objectives, research questions, significance, and the outline of the thesis.The second chapter is the literature review, introducing the previous studies on English readingteaching. Before Conceptual Metaphor, theories such as such as Interaction, Discourse Analysis,and Task-based Language Teaching are applied to English reading teaching. ConceptualMetaphor is applied to English reading comprehension teaching lexically, textually and culturally.The third chapter is the framework and methodology. Framework briefly introduces the definition,historical review, classification, experimental basis, image schema, and features of ConceptualMetaphor. Methodology provides analysis of subjects and their reading comprehension abilities,research instruments and statistic analysis instruments, and the procedure of the main experiment.The procedure of the main experiment includes three sections. The first section is the design ofpre-test. The second section is the differences of the lesson plans for the two groups. The thirdsection is the design of the post-test. Chapter four is results and discussions. The last chapter,chapter five, is the conclusion. To sum up, based on the theoretical study of the application of Conceptual Metaphor toEnglish reading teaching in middle schools, the thesis tries to prove that this is practical andeffective. The author also tries to arouse the consciousness of English teaching embedded withConceptual Metaphor, and provides a reference for English teaching.