| Reading is universally regarded as an important way of obtaining information. Traditional way of teaching of reading has its drawback. For a long time, our English teaching class put too much emphasis on the accumulating of words and the assimilation of grammatical rules, ignoring the wholesome analysis of passage, especially the teaching goal. What is the ultimate purpose of our teaching of reading? Is it the free interpersonal communication via memorizing words and grammar or the promotion of students'critical thinking and creativity? The emphasis of discussion of this paper will be put on the latter question.Our College English Reading class should focus on the nurturing and cultivating students' ability of critical thinking and in so doing students can acquire the power of insight, prudent logic analysis, deep cultural sense and broad view of the world. Our analysis can be divided into three aspects:first, the importance of teaching of reading. Second, the three aspects of discourse analysis include vocabulary, clause and passage. The importance of accumulation of words has been stressed both by ancient sages and by contemporary scholars. The building up of vocabulary should focus on the origin of various concepts and the explanation of the extensive and connotative meanings of words, for this will lay a solid conceptual foundation of students'reading ability. In traditional class, teachers almost consider the lacking of words and grammatical rules pose obstacles for students'reading process. That makes sense to some extent, but few people find that clause is the tiniest meaningful unit in discourse analysis. From the aspect of discourse analysis, the understanding of sentence can be divided into two levels:grammatical level and semantic level.According to linguist J. R. Martin's theory of discourse analysis, theory of coherence is the key to grasping the entire structure of the whole passage. Generally speaking, theory of coherence focuses on two relationships between sentences:logic relationship and repetitive relationship. Information mentioned above is the prerequisite of critical discourse analysis. We can say that critical thinking is the core value of critical discourse analysis. It is essential for students to apply the critical thinking to reading process, which requires them to evaluate words, sentences and passage embracing ideology, subjective value of the author, and the imprints of the times. By this application, reading process can provide students with multi-dimensional tension and the reading ability, language aptitude, critical thinking ability of students can be promoted and our teaching efforts and resources can be exerted to its largest extent. |
