An Action Approach To The Application Of Discourse Analysis To English Cloze Teaching In Senior High Schools

Cloze in English tests has been widely considered as a huge obstacle to the improvement of students' English core competences largely because students lack the awareness of discourse and cannot apply discourse analysis to Cloze solving.Currently,there are a number of researches concerning discourse analysis and English Cloze on the theoretical level.However,action researches on specific ways of applying discourse analysis to Cloze teaching on the practical level are rarely seen.In this action research,discourse analysis is applied to English Cloze teaching in senior high school to improve students' performance in Cloze-related test and their awareness of discourse structure.The research will answer two questions:(1)How should teachers efficiently apply discourse analysis to English Cloze teaching in senior high school to improve students' achievements in Cloze test?(2)How should teachers improve students' awareness of discourse by Cloze teaching?The research focuses particularly on 48 students in Grade Two in a senior high school and involves such instruments as two questionnaires,two tests,an interview and reflective journals.The research lasts about three months,during which discourse analysis is introduced and specialized Cloze training is carried out.The study reveals that students' Cloze performance can be improved by attaching importance to the analysis of the genre of a passage,enhancing the teaching and specialized training of various cohesive devices,cultivating students'ability of searching for clues in the context,developing students' habit of repeated reading and encouraging students to fill blanks in accordance with context and irrespective of options.The study also reveals that students' awareness of discourse can be improved in two ways:to make students understand westerners' linear pattern of thinking which leads to their presenting the main idea before supporting messages and to help students grasp the basic knowledge of discourse analysis and analyze a passage as a whole,such as getting the main idea of the passage,the analysis of the passage genre and structure,the prediction of the development of the passage,etc.Through the action research,some implications are obtained.On the one hand,it is quite necessary to keep teaching basic language knowledge and various activities can set students of all levels involved in the lesson.On the other hand,action researches can liberate teachers from the suffering of teaching as well as students from that of learning.In addition,it can promote teachers' research ability and professional growth.