A Study Of The Application Of Cohesion And Coherence Theory To English Writing Teaching In Senior High School

In the times of globalization,information explosion and culture diversity,never in any era of our nation have the stakes in involving the language of English been higher than nowadays.Writing ability,as one essential part of the four fundamental skills,has been always performing an indispensable part in improving high school students’ English proficiency.Compared with the English Curriculum Standard of Senior High School issued in2011,the English Curriculum Standard of Senior High School(2017)further emphasizes the importance of writing ability and the urgency of cultivating it,and puts forward some new requirements.One of the new requirements mentions that in English writing,logical relations should be established by means of connective words,demonstrative pronouns,lexical cohesion and other linguistic means.It is also important to choose vocabulary and grammatical structures according to expression needs.Nevertheless,current traditional writing teaching cannot meet these requirements nor effectively improve students’ English writing ability.Therefore,the application of cohesion and coherence theory should be introduced in English writing teaching.In order to verify the application effect of the theory in writing teaching,the researcher conducted an experiment in English writing teaching in a senior high school.Based on the analysis of the data collected,this study aims to explore the effects of the application of the cohesion and coherence theory on students’ cohesive awareness,writing achievement and learning attitude.This experimental study copes with three research questions:(1)What effects does the application of cohesion and coherence theory have on students’ attitude towards in English writing?(2)What influence does the application of cohesion and coherence theory in teaching produce on students’ awareness and use of cohesion and coherence knowledge?(3)Does the application of cohesion and coherence theory improve students’ English writing achievement? If yes,to what extent?This 14-week experiment selected two classes in Grade 2 in No.8 Senior High School in Linfen City,Shanxi Province as the research subjects.The pre-test results indicate that the two classes were at the same writing level,so they were randomly assigned as an Experimental Class(a total of 40 students)and a Control Class(a total of 42 students).Before the experiment,an investigation with the pre-questionnaire and a pre-test of composition were conducted in both classes.In the experiment,the process-oriented approach was only adopted in CC,while the theoretical knowledge of the cohesion and coherence,and the practical use of cohesive devices were introduced into writing teaching with the process-oriented approach in EC.At the end of the experiment,the post-test and post-questionnaire were carried out so as to find out students’ cohesive awareness and perception of writing.In addition,6 students at various writing levels in EC were selected for interviews.Finally,all the above-mentioned data and materials were analyzed in detail.It can be seen from the experimental results: 1.Students’ learning attitude to English writing has positively changed after teaching.2.In addition,students’ cohesive awareness can be enhanced with the application of cohesion and coherence theory in the teaching of English writing in senior high school.3.At last,compared with the teaching only with process-oriented approach,the application of the theory into teaching is conducive to the improvement of students’ writing achievement.The composition quality of students in EC was significantly higher than that of CC.Meanwhile,the results show that the new teaching had less influence on the students in the high-score group than those with intermediate and low scores,and the latter made noticeable progress.As for cohesive devices,students generally preferred conjunction device and various lexical devices.In summary,the results of this study indicate that the application of the theory can be more effective in the teaching of English writing.