A Study On The Rational Cloze Test Of Senior High Schools From The Perspective Of Discourse Analysis Theory

With the implementation of the New Curriculum Standard of English in Senior High Schools, great changes have been made in the English Examination Outline of Senior High Schools in 2014. It is pointed out that attentions should be paid to the application of English. In order to meet the requirement, some adjustments have been made in the propositional forms of the College Entrance Examination. In the English test of the College Entrance Examination, the Grammar Multiple Choice has been replaced by the Rational Cloze Test.The Rational Cloze Test, a new type of test question, emphasizes the importance of discourse analysis ability, and tests students' linguistic knowledge and skills within the discourse. The Rational Cloze Test checks students' discourse competence mainly from sentence structures, grammar forms, changes of the prefix and suffix, discourse context clues and marked words. Discourse analysis ability is one of the most important aspects that influence students' accuracy in the Rational Cloze Test. The basic skill that students should have is the skill to use correct grammar forms of vocabularies in the Rational Cloze Test. During the teaching of the Rational Cloze Test, teachers should be aware of the importance of the formation of students' textual awareness and the improvement of discourse analysis ability. Only when students have the textual awareness and the discourse analysis ability can they do well in the Rational Cloze Test.The Discourse Analysis Theory is quite a wide field. Many specialists and scholars have done research on the Cloze Test, Reading Comprehension Test and the Band 4 Test or Band 6 Test of the College English Examinations by using the Discourse Analysis Theory. However, there is not enough research on the Rational Cloze Test of Senior High Schools. Therefore, the research has to be in conform with the characteristics of the Rational Cloze Test. After the analysis of key points in the Rational Cloze Test, the research is carried out from the perspective of Discourse Analysis Theory. The theoretical basis is three kinds of cohesive devices of the Discourse Analysis Theory, which mainly includes the Grammatical Cohesion, Lexical Cohesion and Logical Cohesion. What is more, this research attempts to answer the following questions:1. What kind of problems do students have in the Rational Cloze Test exercises?2. How can teachers help students apply the discourse analysis ability to the Rational Cloze Test?3. What kind of measures can be taken to improve students' accuracy in the Rational Cloze Test?Based on the current situation of the Rational Cloze Test teaching, a new teaching method is explored in the Rational Cloze Test, for example, applying three kinds of cohesive devices of the Discourse Analysis Theory in the Rational Cloze Test. What is more, two classes with similar level from the Senior High School are selected and experiments are carried out in the two classes. In the Experimental Class, three kinds of cohesive devices of the Discourse Analysis Theory are applied during the teaching process. Meanwhile, the traditional teaching method is employed in the Control Class.By conducting the questionnaire, experiment, interview and quantitative analysis and qualitative analysis, the experiment reveals that the better students' discourse analysis ability is, the more accurate students' answers of the test are. In addition, students' learning interest of vocabulary and grammar has been stimulated under the guidance of the three kinds of cohesive devices of the Discourse Analysis Theory, and students' textual awareness and the discourse analysis ability have also been enhanced. Moreover, the accuracy in the Rational Cloze Test has been greatly improved.