The Application Of Cohesive Devices To English Writing Teaching In Senior High School

English writing ability is regarded as one of the most important criteria to reflect students' English language competence.It is reflected in their competence to convey information correctly and express ideas fluently.However,English writing performance of high school students is considerably unsatisfactory.English writing teaching is also a big challenge for the teachers.Halliday and Hasan proposed the cohesive devices theory in which the emphasis on reference,substitution,ellipsis,lexical cohesion and conjunction attract wide attention.Acquaintance with the five cohesive devices properly could do great help to English writing.This thesis applies Halliday's and Hasan's cohesive devices theory to English writing in senior high schools,which aims to test the effectiveness of writing teaching based on cohesive devices approach.It explores the following three questions: 1)Can cohesive devices teaching improve students' writing score? 2)Are cohesive devices used more in high-score compositions than in low-score compositions? 3)Among the various cohesive devices,which cohesive device directly affects students' English writing performance?The results of the study are as follows: 1)cohesive devices teaching can improve students' writing performance significantly;2)cohesive devices are used more in the high-score compositions than low-score compositions;3)among many cohesive devices,lexical cohesion and conjunction directly affect students' writing performance.It can be concluded that the teaching of cohesive devices plays a positive role in the application of English writing teaching in senior high schools.