An Empirical Study On Teaching Of English Reading In Middle Schools From The Perspective Of Discourse Analysis

According to the theory of discourse analysis,language shall not be studied only at the sentence level,but at the level of discourse as a whole.From the perspective of discourse,the reader could have a better understanding of the writer's language system,organization and his intention as well.However,the teaching of reading in middle schools is far from satisfaction and needs to be improved in terms of discourse analysis.Based on the application of discourse analysis to English reading teaching,this research investigates how teachers apply the theory of discourse analysis to their reading teaching in Hangzhou Qinghe Experimental School through questionnaire,interview,classroom observation and test.The research also studies what influences students' reading comprehension,and discusses how to improve students' reading ability in terms of discourse awareness.This study intends to search for answers to the following three questions:(1)Which aspects of discourse analysis do English teachers apply in reading teaching?(2)How do middle school English teachers apply the theory of discourse analysis in reading teaching?(3)What are the main factors that affect students' reading comprehension in terms of discourse analysis?It can be concluded from the research results that English teachers can apply the theory of discourse analysis to guiding their reading teaching to some extent,though not systematically.In their practical reading teaching,teachers focus on the level of words and sentences of a text,neglecting the illustration of genre,textual patterns,cohesion and context.And the students' reading comprehension is influenced by their discourse knowledge including the factors like genre,textual patterns,cohesion,andcontext.Therefore,in order to improve students' reading ability,English teachers in middle schools should equip students with discourse knowledge of genre,textual patterns,cohesion and context.