The Role Of Cohesion In Improving The Dictation Scores In TEM4

TEM4 (Test for English Majors Band 4) is an integrative test, and dictation is a kind of test of integrative skills. Many scholars both at home and abroad have found that the dictation score is highly correlated with the total score of TEM4. However, the part of dictation has always been the most problematic part for most students. Therefore, it is necessary to develop some strategies or methods of improving the students'ability of dealing with dictation.There are very few studies concerning the topic of dictation abroad. In China, the studies about dictation can be summarized into the following kinds according to their proposed strategies of improving the standard of dictation. The first kind is that some scholars proposed to improve the ability of dictation by activating the Grammar of Expectancy through analyzing the dictation models and the problems in dictation. The second kind is that some scholars proposed the necessity of improving dictation standard by analyzing the high correlations between the dictation score and the total score of TEM4. Some other scholars investigated how to improve the ability of dictation from the point of view of the training methods of dictation. But all the above mentioned proposals will be effective only after a long period of training.The dictation materials are meaningful texts according to the Syllabus of TEM4 (2004). Since the dictation passage has textuality, it is possible to develop a method of improving the dictation ability from the point of view of cohesion, which belongs to texture. There are many articles concerning the method of improving reading and writing ability by way of cohesion, but no articles regard cohesion as the means of improving dictation ability. Therefore, this thesis attempts to regard cohesion as the means of improving the dictation ability in TEM4.The subjects of this study are two homogeneous classes, one of 30 students as Experiment Group, the other of 30 students as Control Group, which follows the same teaching curriculum except the EG receive nearly one-month period of teaching of cohesion theory. The pretest showed that the two groups made similar mistakes. The proof-reading of the pretest by EG and CG and the TEM4 2006 showed that systematic knowledge of cohesion theory can help EG improve their dictation ability and then increase their total scores in a short period.