The Teaching Research And Application Of Adverbial Conjunctions To The English Readings In Shanghai Senior High School Entrance Examination

English test is an important part of the curriculum of English,which is also a guarantee for the realization of the objectives of the course.Shanghai Senior High School Entrance Examination(abbreviated as SSHSEE)is a final examination at the compulsory education stage and it has a strong washback effect on both teachers and students.In SSHSEE,the reading comprehension part accounts for 33% of the total score.Therefore,it is crucial to improve students' reading comprehension ability so that they can achieve higher score in SSHSEE.The analysis of the reading discourse in SSHSEE can not only contribute to teachers' and students' teaching and learning in class,but also to the innovation of language testing.Adverbial Conjunctions(abbreviated as ACs)are a kind of words which can connect sentences or paragraphs in a discourse.It can not only reveal the logic relations among linguistic units but also connect the context and demonstrate the author's writing intention.ACs deserve teachers' and students' attention because they can help students improve their reading efficiency.However,the investigation shows that most students pay little attention to ACs and most teachers neglect ACs while teaching reading.Therefore,in order to raise students' and teachers' awareness of ACs,this study narrows its scope,focusing on investigating the occurrence frequency and function of ACs in the reading discourses of SSHSEE during 2000 to 2019.This thesis also conducts a teaching experiment based on the questionnaires which clearify students' and teachers' attitudes toward ACs.Then,this thesis puts forward some teaching suggestions,trying its best to improve students' reading comprehension ability with the help of ACs.The thesis begins with the introduction of the research background and its significance,and then it illustrates the theoretical foundations,including the washback effect and the relevant studies on ACs at home and abroad.What's more,this research also adopts several methods and concludes some pedagogical suggestions: 1.A great many investigations find out that ACs are widely used in the reading discourses of SSHSEE.The amount and function of ACs deserve great attention.2.By means of questionnaire,this thesis finds out students' and teachers' attitude and understanding of ACs.3.Conducting teaching experiment to verify the effectiveness of ACs,the author uses SPSS 16.0 to analyze the experimental results.The analysis shows that there is significant difference between the mean scores of the pre-test and post-test,which means ACs play an important role in improving students' reading comprehension ability.Furthermore,based on the outcome of the investigation and the teaching experiment,the author illustrates the major findings and reaches the conclusion that ACs should be applied to the English reading instruction.Last but not least,the thesis puts forward some pedagogical suggestions and several limitations of this study,hoping to give some practical suggestions to the further study.