A Study On The Application Of Genre-Based Teaching Approach To English Reading Teaching In A Senior High School

English reading is the process of obtaining information,processing and forming a unique understanding through written languages.Reading helps to master knowledge,obtain information and improve the ability of language application.In addition,reading always plays an important role in senior high school English tests.The process of reading comprehension can be divided into the micro process and the macro process.In the traditional English reading teaching,teachers usually pay attention to the micro process,but some teachers may ignore the macro process,leading to the difficulty for students to grasp the overall structures and contents of the texts,thus reducing the speed and efficiency of reading comprehension.In view of this,this thesis applies genre-based teaching approach to reading teaching,hoping to provide theoretical and practical references for senior high school English reading teaching under the guidance of National English Curriculum Standards for General High School(MOE,2018).Genre-based teaching approach combines genre and genre analysis theory to study the structures,forms and contents of different texts and then integrates them into practical English teaching.This research combines genre-based teaching approach with English reading teaching in a senior high school in Jiangsu province and 104 students are selected from the experimental class and the controlled class.This experiment lasts for a semester.The research process includes the reading pre-test and the post-test,observation and analysis,questionnaires,interviews and so on.The influence of genre-based teaching approach on senior high school English reading classes is analyzed by comparing the pre-test scores and the post-test scores of the two classes,comparing questionnaires and analyzing interviews.This study focuses on the following three questions:1.Can genre-based teaching approach improve senior high school students' English reading achievements?2.In what ways can genre-based teaching approach help learners improve their English reading?3.Why does genre-based teaching approach help improve learners' English reading ability?This study adopts genre-based teaching approach for the experimental class while traditional grammar and vocabulary teaching method is adopted for the controlled class.Three conclusions are drawn:1.Genre-based teaching approach can help senior high school students improve their English reading achievements.At the beginning of the experiment,students in the experimental class and the controlled class had similar English reading competence.However,after a semester of genre-based teaching,compared with students in the controlled class,students in the experimental class have improved their English reading scores significantly and their average reading score is better than those in the controlled class.2.Compared with the controlled class,the students in the experimental class have improved their genre awareness,understanding of the main ideas and inferring the author's intentions.In this research,the students in the experimental class have formed a sense of genre under the influence of genre-based teaching approach.They are good at using communication purposes,text structures and contents to analyze the texts.They also use genre analysis to understand the main ideas of the texts from a macro perspective and infer the implied meaning of the texts to form their own understanding.3.Genre-based teaching approach provides a new reading strategy and method for students to improve their English reading ability.It also helps students establish more reading interests and confidence.Traditional teaching method emphasizes the micro perspectives of texts and pays attention to vocabulary and grammar knowledge,but once students lack of relevant language knowledge,their reading progress may be affected.Through the new teaching method,students gradually master the definitions of genre and the methods of genre analysis,and the they can analyze the texts independently from three aspects: communication purposes,discourse structures and contents of different genres.Therefore,genre-based teaching approach enables students to analyze texts from a macro perspective even if they encounter obstacles invocabulary and grammar,so as to proceed reading comprehension.At the same time,on the basis of three research questions,this thesis provides suggestions on how to design teaching assignments and teaching activities.Through this teaching experiment,the following implications are obtained.Firstly,genre-based teaching approach should be combined with traditional grammar and vocabulary teaching methods.Secondly,students should improve the awareness of the relationship between language knowledge and communication purposes.Thirdly,teachers should make students exposed to adequate genres and should design genre-oriented teaching activities appropriately to help students analyze the texts independently.Finally,teachers should teach reading strategies appropriately.