Effect Of Discourse-Oriented Teaching On Senior Middle School Students’ Problem-Solving Ability In Cloze Ⅱ Test

According to the English Curriculum Standards (Experiment)(2003), it is required to increase the subjective items in National Matriculation English Test (NMET). There appeared a new kind of Cloze---Cloze II in the NMET2010, in which Cloze Ⅱ as a comprehensive test,can objectively reflect the students’intergrating skills in using language. However, the majority of the students consider Cloze Ⅱ more difficult as with compared Cloze I and easy to lose scores in this item. By analyzing the Cloze II tests in NMET in recent years, the author of this paper has found out that Cloze Ⅱ lays more and more stress on students’ability in discourse comprehension. As a consequence, it is suggested that discourse analysis should be applied to the problem---solving process of Cloze.In light of the characteristics of the Cloze II test, students must have some knowledge about discourse analysis to do the Cloze II test well, as has been said before. So it is necessary for senior middle school teachers to explore a good teaching method to develop students’ability to solve problems in discourse analysis. The thesis intends to study how to improve students’ability to solve the problems in the Cloze II test if teachers incorporate discourse analysis in senior middle school English teaching.The key points of this thesis are:l.The influences which are made by discourse-oriented teaching on senior middle students’attitude towards the Cloze Ⅱ test.2.The effect of discourse-oriented teaching on senior middle school students’ problem-solving ability in Cloze II testThe thesis first introduces the theoretical bases of the cloze test and major theories of discourse analysis. Then it analyzes the characteristics and the development of the Cloze II test in NMET from2010to2012and describes the close relationship between the Cloze Ⅱ test and discourse analysis. Finally, based on the analysis of the data from the experiment which was carried out for4months, I can draw a conclusion that teachers should consciously guide the students to use the knowledge of the discourse analysis to the problem-solving process of the Cloze II test, which can bring positive effects to senior middle school students’attitude towards the Cloze II test and improve the students’problem-solving ability.