A Study On The Application Of Genre-based Teaching Approach In English Reading Teaching At Senior High School

Reading is a complicated mental process of picking up information from the written discourse and it is also one momentous way to acquire language knowledge and skills of English for Chinese students at senior high school,which plays a vital role in English teaching.At present,the total score of English paper for the College Entrance Examination is 150,of which reading accounts for 40 marks,about 27%.Besides,the Ministry of Education of our country also makes a specific regulation in the New Curriculum that the improvement of students' reading ability is the most important goal for a long run,which also requires that English teaching should focus on cultivating students' ability to use English accurately,appropriately and tactfully in interpersonal communication,process and acquire information in English,analyze and solve problems as well as the ability to think critically.However,in many a senior high schools English teaching is still teacher-centered,which pays much attention to explaining vocabulary and grammar and constrains the development of students' reading ability.Therefore,how to teach English reading effectively has been being a concern for a large number of scholars and teachers both abroad and at home.Genre-based teaching approach based on theories of genre and genre analysis came into being in the mid-1980 s,which has drawn worldwide attention from experts and scholars.Genre-based teaching approach pays attention to genre structures of the text and the application of genre knowledge in classroom.It aims at assisting students in acquiring genre knowledge and guiding students to attain information gradually based on genre structures and language features,enhancing students' reading ability.Based on the theories of discourse analysis,genre analysis and schema,this thesis studied the application of genre-based teaching approach in reading teaching at senior high school.At first,the researcher reviewed the related studies on reading and genre-based teaching approach.Then,the researcher stated the theories of discourse analysis,genre analysis and schema in detail as a guidance on the application of genre-based teaching approach in reading teaching at senior high school.Finally,the researcher designed the teaching model of applying genre-based teaching approach and trained students for two semesters.In this paper,the researcher tried to apply genre-based teaching approach in reading teaching at senior high school to explore the effectiveness and practicability of it.At the same time,this thesis tried to answer the following two questions:1)Can the application of Genre-based teaching approach in English reading teaching improve students' reading achievements at senior high school?2)Can the application of Genre-based teaching approach in English reading teaching develop students' genre awareness at senior high school?In this thesis,the researcher chose 100 sophomore students from Liulin Middle School,Zhuoni County of Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Gansu as participants and chose questionnaire surveys and reading comprehension tests as experimental instruments.During the experimental process,the researcher analyzed the discourse structures and language features of three common genres carefully,including the narration,exposition and argumentation.After the experiment,the researcher used SPSS 19.0 to analyze all collected data from questionnaires and reading comprehension tests by independent samples T-test,paired samples T-test and other descriptive statistics.The results of the experiment show that,on one hand,the application of genre-based teaching approach can improve students' reading achievements effectively.On the other hand,the application of genre-based teaching approach can help students accumulate genre knowledge and develop students' genre awareness effectively,which indicates the application of genre-based teaching approach is practical and effective.