On The Application Of Discourse Analysis Theory In The Teaching Of English Reading In Senior High School

The development of the society and the acceleration of globalization has raised higher requirements for English learners. Obviously, teaching reading lessons becomes very important. As the main input of language learning for senior high school students, reading takes an important position in the four skills of English. On the one hand, students can extend their background knowledge and increase their vocabulary through reading lessons. On the other hand, reading can also help them use authentic language and develop their writing skills. So the ways of teaching reading is directly related to students’ English achievements. Reading is the fundamental and important way of information acquisition and communication. However, the traditional reading teaching put more emphasis on the explanation of vocabulary and grammar. Therefore, it breaks the complete and meaningful articles into several fragmented language points, ignoring the cultivation of students’ discourse competence and language proficiency. According to the discourse analysis theory, language study should not be limited to the sentence level, merely analyzing the sentence structures, but should treat the discourse as a whole. From the perspective of discourse, the reader could have a better understanding of the writer’s language system and the organization of discourses. Thus they could grasp the writer’s intention accurately. Based on the discourse analysis theory and relevant researches, the author uses the macro text structure of Mc Carthy and Labov, the micro cohesion theory and context theory of Halliday and Hason as a guide. It is to explore how to use discoursed-based teaching into reading and form a new method to improve the effectiveness of reading teaching. And it is to prove the effectiveness of this teaching method.As a new teaching method, discourse analysis has attracted more and more attention with the continuous reform of English teaching. It changes the reading strategies and skills of the foreign language learners through discourse analysis. Learning the knowledge about context and text patterns will be a great help for improving the reading comprehension of the readers. This kind of researches is often seen in the college. However, few researchers go to study the application of discourse analysis in the senior high schools. With some existing reading problems in high school students, some studies will be done to find out the effect of the application of discourse analysis. There are some teaching experiments to prove the effects of using discourse analysis. The research questions are the following:1) Can discourse-based English reading teaching help improve the high school students’ cognitive reading strategies?2) Can discourse-based English reading teaching help improve the high school students’ reading achievements?The author conducted the investigations on the students in Lang fang No.15 Senior High School through questionnaires and tests, and carried out a quantitative analysis on the results of questionnaires and tests. The author chooses two classes. One is the control class using traditional teaching methods. And the other is the experimental class using discourse-based teaching methods. After a period of treatment, some data can be collected. Based on the results of the reading tests, questionnaires for students, the author draws the conclusion that the students’ cognitive reading strategies and reading achievements are influenced by their discourse knowledge. Therefore, in order to improve students’ cognitive reading strategies and reading achievements, English teachers in senior high school should try to apply discourse-based teaching methods.The author attempts to put forward a tentative teaching model for senior high school English reading, combining the discourse analysis theory with the teaching of reading. And the author wants to find the effectiveness of this teaching method. Research data obtained through experiment practice can provide a basis in the study of discourse analysis used in senior high school English reading class. On the basis of relevant theories of discourse analysis and the research results, the author tries to provide the high school English teachers with a tentative teaching model and verify the effectiveness of this teaching mode. In practice, this study proposes suggestions based on empirical research, trigger further thinking. As for the study of English reading in senior high school, it is of important practical significance to provide reference for teaching and English teachers.