The Application Of Relevance Theory To English Reading Teaching In Senior High School

As we all know,reading is an important access to immediately obtaining the international information.In this situation,cultivating students' reading ability becomes gradually crucial in the aspect of English reading teaching,especially for students in senior high school.Currently,the traditional teaching method of English reading,grammar-translation method which mainly focuses on the new words,language points and grammar but neglects students' cognitive ability,always plays a dominant role in the senior high school.To some degree,with this method,students in senior high school can obtain more new words and understand the grammar clearly,while the ability and the efficiency of reading haven't improved.Therefore,many teachers long for searching a new and effective teaching method to apply to the English reading.Based on the requirements of society,New Curriculum Standard of Senior High School and students' needs,some scholars have applied Relevance Theory from the cognitive pragmatics to English reading teaching.Relevance Theory holds that communication is the ostensive-inference behavior,mainly involving ostensive-inference communication,cognitive context and optimal relevance.This thesis intends to explore the effectiveness of the teaching model based on Relevance Theory in English reading teaching in senior high school.The author specifically aims to answer the following questions:(1)Can the teaching model based on Relevance Theory exert the positive influence on students' awareness of reading strategies in reading?(2)Can the teaching model based on Relevance Theory improve students' reading ability and reading proficiency?The study illustrates the explicature of Relevance Theory on the function,principle,effects and strategies of the reading teaching.To examine the effectiveness of this readingteaching method,two paralleled classes of 81 students,are selected from Zhengzhou No.14 Senior High School.These two classes are of nearly the same proficiency in reading.One is the experimental class in which the author applies new teaching model based on Relevance Theory,and the other is the control class in which the traditional teaching model is used in class.The tests and the questionnaires before and after the study are conducted.After four months' study,the author collects the data and then analyzes them statistically by using SPSS20.0.It is concluded that students' awareness of using the reading strategies in the experimental class has improved more significantly than that in the control class,and the reading ability in the experimental class is higher than that in the control class after the teaching experiment.Finally,major findings of the thesis are summarized and some limitations are also put forward along with some suggestions for teaching reading activities in senior high school.One limitation is that the size of samples is not big enough,so the conclusion may not be applicable to students in other areas.However,these findings provide the author with some valuable experience to continue to study further on this topic in depth in the future.