The Application Of Context Theory To The Teaching Of English Reading In Senior High School

Reading is an important means for people to get information and knowledge. In order tomaster any language systematically, one should acquire knowledge of five basic skills inlanguage learning, that is, listening, speaking, reading, writing, and translating. There is noexception in learning English. Among these basic skills, reading is the focus of Englishlearning. At the same time, it is also an important way to test English learners’ comprehensiveability. New English syllabus clearly states: The purpose of English teaching in high school isto consolidate and expand the basic knowledge of the students, to develop the four basic skills.i.e., listening, speaking, reading and writing and to train the ability of communication in bothoral English and written English on the basis of the compulsory education in junior highschool English teaching. Reading proficiency is the focus.However, there is still a gap between the current situation of reading in high schoolstudents and the national requirements. This is mainly because of a single mode of traditionalreading instruction, emphasis on grammar teaching and the lack of necessary linguisticanalysis and the necessary guidance to the students’ reading skills. Thus, the students lack ofinterest in reading, which results in poor reading abilityBritish anthropologist Malinowski first proposed the concept of “context” in1923. Hebelieves that the language environment is essential for understanding language and thatdiscourse and environment are close together. You know a word by the company it keeps. Nocontext, no text. Two famous sayings in English well indicate the importance of context.Many linguists at home and abroad have studied and interpreted the context. And they havedifferent context classifications from different point of view. The research on context developsfrom static to dynamic. This essay divides context into the linguistic context andextra-linguistic context, the former refers to the internal environment of the language, that is,the English language knowledge. The latter refers to the language context used in the externalenvironment. Extra-linguistic context is divided into three aspects of the situational context,cultural context and cognitive context. This essay discusses systematically the application ofcontext to English reading teaching, which aims to reduce the obstacles in English readingand the misunderstanding owing to the difference in situations, cultures as well as cognition. Only in this way can we improve students’ reading comprehension and the ability toappreciate the discourse. This essay has six chapters.Chapter one briefly describes the background, current situations about English readingteaching in senior high school, purpose and significance of the research.Chapter two mainly reviews relevant theory on context. According to the main line ofdifferent scholars’ research, the paper illustrates the development of context from static todynamic research. On the basis of the basic theory from linguists both at home and abroad,the definition and classification of context are put forward. They are different but there aresimilarities among them. Context is divided into two types: linguistic context andextra-linguistic context. Language context is the traditional context, extra-linguistic context isthe sum of human psychology encyclopedic knowledge, including situational, cultural andcognitive context.Chapter three firstly deals with the research on reading, including the definition ofreading, the process and three reading models. Three reading models have some limitations,so the introduction of context to English teaching is necessary. Then it expounds theapplication of context to English reading teaching. The author discusses the application ofcontext in reading teaching from the four aspects: linguistic context, situational context,cultural context and cognitive context.Chapter four is the research design, aiming to prove that context has an effectiveinfluence in the actual teaching of reading. The subjects of the experiment are83sophomorestudents from Senior high school in Shijiazhuang. Class one serves as experiment class,having42students, while class two as control class, having41students. Through pretest,Students’ English level from the two classes is almost the same. In the following semester, thetraditional reading teaching method is used in control class. On the other hand, students inexperiment class are taught on the basis of the context theory. At the end of the semester,posttest and interview will be carried out.Chapter five is the research analysis of the experimental data and results. Through a termof cultivating awareness of the context, the reading scores of the students in experiment classis significantly higher than that in control class. What’s more, the reading accuracy ofexperimental class students has greatly improved in answering “vocabulary” questions, “details” questions and “inference” questions. Thus the paper concludes that applying contexttheory to English reading teaching is indeed a very effective reading strategy.The last chapter is a conclusion. It describes the findings and limitations of theexperimental design, while it puts forward the suggestions for students and teachers on theapplication of context to the reading teaching, hoping to lead to more attention.