The Effects Of Discourse Teaching Mode On English Reading Ability Of College Students From The Perspective Of Systemic-Functional Grammar

Reading is the main approach for people to get information and improve their knowledge. Cultivating students' English reading ability is one of the main tasks of college education. Relevant reading theories provide abundant theoretical basis for college English reading teaching. The traditional reading teaching mode focuses on the lexical and syntactic characteristics of a text, but overlooks the consistency of a text as an entire discourse and the continuity of language in terms of discourse.However, with the development of relevant linguistic theories, college English reading teaching begins to explore various kinds of new teaching modes.Taking systemic-functional grammar theory and discourse analysis theory as the theoretical framework, this research aims to explore how to make better use of the discourse analysis to improve students' discourse awareness and reading ability, as well as provide guidance for college English reading teaching. Adopting empirical research method, the present study investigates the following three questions: 1) what is the effect of discourse teaching mode on college students' reading approach? 2)What is the effect of discourse teaching mode on college students' reading comprehension ability? 3) What is the effective way to carry out discourse teaching mode? The participants of this research are from two parallel classes of a college in Jiangsu province. Research methods such as pre-test, post-test and questionnaires are used in the present study, and the whole experiment lasts three months.The results of the experiment indicate that: 1) Discourse analysis teaching mode can instruct college students to develop effective reading approach, enhance their discourse awareness, and help them better understand ideational meanings, textual meanings and interpersonal meanings. 2) Discourse teaching mode can significantly improve college students' reading comprehension by analyzing writer's attitude and writing purpose. 3) The most effective way to carry out the discourse teaching mode is that teachers should first introduce the functions of discourse analysis to students,providing students with the relevant knowledge of discourse analysis, especially to those students of low proficiency. Based on the above findings, this research suggests that the college English teachers should not only concentrate on vocabulary and syntax in reading teaching, but also introduce discourse knowledge to students and guide them to pay attention to discourse structures, in order to improve students'integral reading comprehension ability.