A Study On The Application Of Textual Cohesion And Coherence Theory To English Reading Teaching In Senior High School

It is universally acknowledged that reading a text is one of the most common forms of reading.As for English reading teaching in senior high school,reading a text not only involves words and grammar,but also requires textual knowledge and reading strategies.Textual cohesion and coherence are textual knowledge and relevant to reading strategies.As basic semantic features of a text,textual cohesion and coherence are vitally important to interpret and construct a text.However,current English reading teaching is stereotyped as follows: during the first period of lesson,teachers raise some questions for students to answer.Students scan or skim to locate some sentences to answer these questions.In the second period,teachers pick out some words and grammar to explain so-called language points.This reading teaching is trapped in learning sentences,vocabulary and grammar in isolation,and students have much difficulty acquiring cohesive and coherent interpretation of a text.It is typical of fragmented reading teaching.In reality,cohesion and coherence are important textual knowledge,and identifying and understanding them are indispensable reading strategies.Therefore,reading should be not limited to words and grammar within the sentence level but developed into text level by analyzing textual cohesion and coherence across sentences,so that students can acquire a complete,full and coherent comprehension of the text.For a long time,dozens of studies on cohesion and coherence have mostly focused on the expansion of theory.While scholars have undertaken intensive researches on English teaching with the guidance of Cohesion and Coherence Theory,in the practice of reading teaching,the detailed effects of applying Cohesion and Coherence Theory to English reading teaching in Senior High school are far from clear.The researcher carried out 18 weeks research in Xinyang No.1 Senior High School.One hundred and twenty Senior Three students got involved in this research.Students from class 2(experimental class)were taught under the guidance of Cohesion and Coherence Theory,while the students from class 7(control class)still followed traditional reading teaching.The thesis is aimed at answering the following questions:(1)What are the changes of students' identifying and understanding devices oftextual cohesion and coherence,when Textual Cohesion and Coherence Theory is applied ?(2)What influence does the teaching reading have on students' reading strategies,when Textual Cohesion and Coherence Theory is applied?(3)What influence does the teaching reading have on students' reading proficiency,when Textual Cohesion and Coherence Theory is applied?To answer these three questions,the researcher adopted think-aloud protocols,questionnaires and reading comprehension tests.The findings from the experiments demonstrated that when Textual Cohesion and Coherence Theory was applied,1)students became more and more aware of textual cohesion and cohesion and could identify an increasing number of devices of cohesion and coherence;2)students were well equipped with reading strategies concerning cohesion and coherence;3)reading teaching with guidance of cohesion and coherence could improve students' reading proficiency.Though the research is tentative,it can be of some help to teaching and learning English reading.