Research On Applying Discourse Analysis To The Rational Cloze Test In Fujian NMET

In accordance with the requirements stipulated in the New Curriculum Standard ofSenior English that “to appropriately increase the proportion of subjective items in the test”，Rational Cloze，as a new type，appeared in Fujian NMET in2009. It is an integrative testwhich can objectively reflect students’ comprehensive language competence. Statistics showthat the performance of this type left much to be desired. The failure is mainly because of thelack of knowledge on discourse. Seeking the solution to the problem results in this thesis withthe title of “Research on Applying Discourse Analysis to the Rational Cloze Test in FujianNMET”. It is hoped that this study will shift the high school English teachers’ attention fromtraditional approach to discourse-oriented approach, thus improve students’ comprehensivelanguage competence.Firstly, this thesis outlines related theories on discourse and theoretical bases of theRational Cloze as well as its characteristics. Next, the thesis discusses the way to apply thediscourse analysis theory to high school English in detail, with special reference to discourseknowledge such as cohesion and coherence, context and so on. Then, a relative experiment ismade to testify the influence discourse analysis made on Rational Cloze in Fujian NMET.Thekey points of this thesis are as follows: a. Analyzing the features, theoretical bases of RationalCloze and the main reasons for students’ poor performance in this type. b. Applyingknowledge of discourse analysis to high school English teaching to raise students’ awarenessto it and improve their comprehensive language competence. The innovations lie in theresearch into the features of the Rational Cloze and the major causes of students’ poorperformances in the test to analyze the relation between Rational Cloze and discourse,placing the theory of discourse analysis into the practice of high school English teaching toimprove students’ performance in NMET.We can conclude from the analysis and the experiment that the discourse-orientedapproach should be strengthened in senior high school English teaching. Teachers shouldhelp students to acquire language knowledge in discourse, and therefore develop theircomprehensive competence in language and improve their performance in Fujian NMETRational Cloze.