A Case Study Of English Reading Teaching In Senior High School

The development of the society and the acceleration of globalization has raisedhigher requirements for English learners. English learners should be equipped withnot only listening and speaking abilities, but also excellent reading ability. Reading isthe fundamental and important way of information acquisition and communication.English reading is not only the main source of language input and accumulation, butalso an important way to improve students’ language competence. Thus it plays acrucial role in the English reading teaching in senior high schools. However, thetraditional reading teaching put more emphasis on the explanation of vocabulary andgrammar. Therefore, it breaks the complete and meaningful articles into severalfragmented language points, ignoring the cultivation of students’ discoursecompetence and language proficiency.According to the discourse analysis theory, language study should not be limitedto the sentence level, merely analyzing the sentence structures, but should treat thediscourse as a whole. From the perspective of discourse, the reader could have a betterunderstanding of the writer’s language system and the organization of discourses.Thus they could grasp the writer’s intention accurately. Based on the discourseanalysis theory and relevant researches, the thesis analyzes the English teachers’methods of teaching reading and students’ reading comprehension in senior highschool, attempting to seek out a more effective English reading teaching model toimprove students’ reading ability.The author conducted the investigations on English teachers and students inZaozhuang No.8Senior High School through questionnaire, interview and test, andcarried out a quantitative analysis on the results of the test and a qualitative analysison the results of the questionnaire and interview. The research attempts to findanswers to the following two questions:(1) Do the English teachers in senior highschool use discourse analysis theory to guide their reading teaching?(2) Is the degreeof students’ reading comprehension influenced by their discourse knowledge? If the answer is yes, then what aspects of discourse analysis should English teachersstrengthen in the teaching process in order to improve the student’s reading ability?On the basis of the results of the questionnaire and interview for the Englishteachers in senior high school, the author finds that the English teachers use discourseanalysis theory to guide their reading teaching, though not systematically. Englishteachers focus on the explanation of the background knowledge, coherence and theorganization of a text, neglecting the illustration of genre, cohesion, context andtheme-rheme structure. Based on the results of the reading test, questionnaire andinterview for students, the author draws the conclusion that the degree of students’reading comprehension is influenced by their discourse knowledge. Factors affectingstudents’ reading comprehension include genre and discourse patterns, cohesion,context and theme-rheme structure. Therefore, in order to improve students’ readingability, English teachers in senior high school should strengthen the teaching of genreand discourse patterns, cohesion, context and theme-rheme structure.The author attempts to put forward a tentative teaching model for senior highschool English reading, combining the discourse analysis theory with the results ofthe survey.