A Study On The Application Of Systemic Functional Context-based Approach In Senior High School English Reading Instruction

Context theory is an important concept in systemic functional linguistics and contextplays a great role in the understanding of language and discourse interpretation. Malinowskiputs forward the concept of “context” for the first time, and distinguishes the differencebetween situational context and cultural context, then with the successive contribution oflinguistics like Firth, context theory keeps on improving. Finally Halliday makes moredetailed research on context theory, which forms the basis for systemic functional linguistics.All these studies about systemic functional linguistics context theory laid the foundation forthe systemic functional context-based approach (shortened as context-based approach) inEnglish instruction in this research.Reading is a processing of thinking as well as a reasoning process by using languagecontext, situation context and culture context. However, at present, because high schoolstudents lack context awareness, they are weak in inferring from the various contexts. Asstudents’ insufficient understanding of the context normally hinders their reading in Englishand prevents them from improving their reading performance in achievement tests, therealways exists a big problem of how to improve students understanding in reading via contexttheory.How language is learned and how is it best taught always remain to be a big problem forall teachers and educators. In this research, the author, attempts to apply a new context-basedteaching approach in English reading instruction, with intent to solve the above-mentionedproblem, based on the understanding of context theory of systemic functional linguistics,which claims that context can be divided into linguistic context and non-linguistic context,and non-linguistic context can be further divided into cultural context and situational context.Through the analysis of the different characteristics of various contexts and their relationshipwith students’ reading comprehension, the author applies the context theory of systemicfunctional linguistics to high school English reading instruction, and by using thecontext-based approach in teaching, he tries to develop students’ context awareness withintent to find a solution to the problem in current English reading instruction in China. Theresearch intends to address two key research questions related to the problem:1. Will the application of Systemic Functional Context-based approach arouse students’interest in English?2. Will the application of Systemic Functional Context-based approach improve students’English reading ability?The Author carried the teaching experiment in two classes in Second Senior MiddleSchools, Chaoyang, Liaoning Province, for three months during which the author uses both qualitative and quantitative research methods. The author used traditional teaching method inthe control class (CC), while the new context-based approach in the experimental class (EC).By comparing the scores in pretest and posttest of the control class and experimental class andadministrating a questionnaire to the experimental class, the author intends to obtain the firsthand feedback of students, get some data and then make analysis for the major findings.The research results show that by applying the context-based approach in EC in thesenior high school English reading instruction, students’ learning interest, reading ability, aswell as their context awareness have been improved (to be more accurate, both the teacher’sand students’ context awareness has been improved). In the experiment, the author has solvedsome of the problems existed in students’ reading. Under the guidance of the context theory,students can better grasp the main points of the reading material and the authors’ intention,hence deepen their understanding to the context, better their deconstruction andcomprehension ability, improve the ability of discourse understanding, so as to improve thestudents’ reading comprehension and reading efficiency in reading tests, and students caneventually gain pleasure from reading and enlarge their English knowledge.