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

National English Curriculum Standards for Senior High School(2017)explicitly points out that as one of the core competencies of English,English reading ability affects the students' ability to use English comprehensively.(Ministry of Education 2018:4)English reading comprehension takes up 40 points in the College Entrance Examination,which indicates the importance of English reading teaching in senior high school.The author had a work placement with Puyang NO.1 Senior High School since September,2017.The author observed that students in this school had problems such as lacking of interest in reading and inappropriate reading strategies.Therefore,the author conducted a research of the major problems and causes during the reading process of high school students.This experiment mainly used the pre-test and post-test,pre—questionnaire and post—questionnaire and interviews as research methods.Based on the related data and relevance theory,the author puts forward the hypothesis that the application of relevance theory can effectively enhance English reading ability of senior high school students.The author chooses Class 1,Grade 2017 to conduct class action research,with aims to explore the effects of the reading teaching under the guidance of relevance theory,to analyze the problems and causes encountered in the process and to find solutions.This study mainly answers two research questions:(1)What are the impacts of relevance theory on the teaching of English reading in senior high school?(2)What problems do teachers encounter when using relevance theory? What are the main causes for these problems?The five-month action study shows that(1)The effects of relevance theory on senior high school English reading teaching are as follows.In terms of ability,relevance theory enhances students' reading abilities from aspects of words,sentences,and articles,which help students to guess words' meaning,clarify their thinking and deepen the understanding of main idea.In terms of strategies,relevance theory guides students to clear reading goals,deepens understanding of different genres and text subject and clarifies the context.In terms of interest,relevance theory helps students to enrich the background knowledge,enhance the interaction between readers and writers thus make students understand the text more easily and increase their reading interest.(2)The main problems encountered are lacking independent reading ability and detailed reading ability.The main causes can be summarized as follows: teacher put into too much as while as students' insufficient English vocabularies and reading quantity.