A Study On The Effects Of Discourse Analysis Teaching On Primary School Students' Thinking Qualities

National English Curriculum Standards for General High School(2017)emphasizes that teachers need to help develop students' discourse awareness and thinking qualities during teaching.However,the fragmented teaching method contributes to students' fragmented thinking,making the thinking of analyzation,evaluation and creation poor.The discourse teaching mode changes the traditional fragmented teaching,focusing on genre and background knowledge from macro analysis and on coherence and cohesion from micro analysis.The present study applies this approach to the reading teaching in primary school in order to explore the effects of this innovative teaching method on students' thinking qualities.Specifically,it aims to address the following questions:1.What is the current situation of discourse analysis teaching and cultivation of thinking quality in the primary school? 2.What is the effect of discourse teaching mode on primary school students' lower level thinking?3.What's the effect of discourse teaching mode on students' higher-level thinking?The research subjects are the grade five students from two parallel classes in a primary school from Nanjing.The whole experiment lasts for one term.Before the experiment,pretest and post-test are designed and the total score of each test is 60,30 of which is focused on lower level thinking including questions of memorization,understanding and application.The other 30 is focused on higher level thinking,which includes questions of analyzation,evaluation and creation.A pre-test is carried out in the two classes and there are no significant differences in thinking qualities between them.In the experiment,the traditional reading method is adopted in the control class and by contrast the discourse teaching mode is applied in the experimental class.After the experiment,the two classes have a post-test.Besides,two questionnaires on the application of discourse teaching mode and the current situation of thinking qualities are finished before the experiment.Interviews with different levels of students are also conducted to find out the modification needed in DAT and the reactions of different levels of students to the new teaching mode.The findings are as follows:Firstly,we know that during reading teaching,teachers pay much attention to micro analysis,e.g.reference and pay less attention to macro analysis,especially genre.As to students,we know that during reading,students are more proficient in using coherence skills to help them to understand the reading material and less proficient to use macro analysis,especially genre.As to thinking qualities,it shows that teachers are highly motivated to encourage students to think diversely.Although teachers are still accustomed to focusing on explanation on vocabulary and grammar,the situation is improving.As to the students,it turns out that the majority of students are more accustomed to using memorization,understanding and application skills to help them during English learning.Compared with lower level thinking,students are less inclined to use analyzation,evaluation and creation skills to help them,especially creation skills.Secondly,the discourse teaching mode can improve students' lower level thinking,but it is not so obvious compared with traditional teaching mode.In the pre-test,there is no significant difference between the two classes in lower level thinking.In the post-test,the mean of scores of the EG and that of CG are close.As is shown in the Independent Sample T-tests,there is no significant difference between the two classes in the lower level test.It shows that the discourse teaching mode is not so effective in lower level thinking compared with the traditional teaching mode.However,the Paired Samples T-tests of the scores of the Experimental Group in pre-test and post-test also show a significant difference.It reveals that the discourse teaching mode is effective in improving students' lower level thinking,especially for lower level students.Finally,compared with the traditional teaching,the discourse teaching mode is more effective in improving the students' higher-level thinking.In the pre-test,there is no significant difference between the two classes.But in the post-test,the mean of the EG is much higher than the mean of the CG.As is shown in the Independent Sample T-tests,there is a significant difference between the two classes in higher level thinking test.Moreover,the Paired Samples T-tests of the scores of the Experimental Class in pre-test and post-test also show a significant difference.These data reveal that students guided by the discourse teaching mode make much better performances in higher-level thinking than those instructed by the traditional teaching mode,especially for medium level students.This study provides some pedagogical implications.First,analyzing the text from macro and micro level is conductive to grasping the overall structure meanwhile paying attention to coherence and cohesion for students,thereby improving their logical and critical thinking.Secondly,as teachers we have to encourage diverse thinking and transfer the focus on vocabulary and grammar to developing students' thinking qualities.Thirdly,teachers have to sort out different levels of students in class and try to find out the shortcoming and strength of each level of students.After that,teachers adjust the teaching mode and enable students to draw on each other's merits so as to raise the level together.Finally,there are some shortcomings in this paper because of short experiment time span and small sample groups,so more efforts are needed to further improve it.In the future,the author will improve and practice it according to the current deficiencies.