An Empirical Study On The Application Of Discourse Cohesion Theory To English Writing In Senior High Schools

English writing is regarded as an important criterion for measuring students’ ability to use language comprehensively for the reason that it is a good way to investigate students’ use of the English knowledge they have learned to express their ideas and convey the required information.Besides,China’s Standards of English Language Ability(2018)has set new requirements for the teaching of English writing in high schools.Therefore,how to effectively improve students’ English writing ability in high schools is a major issue in current English teaching.Based on Halliday and Hassan’s discourse cohesion theory,the author tries to make an empirical study on the application of discourse cohesion theory to English writing teaching in senior high schools with the combination of China’s Standards of English Language Ability by conducting teaching experiments.This research aims to explore the following three issues:(1)Can the discourse cohesion theory be applied in daily English teaching class to improve students’ attitude towards English writing?(2)Can the discourse cohesion theory be applied in daily English teaching class to raise students’ cohesion awareness in English writing?(3)Will the application of discourse cohesion theory to English writing teaching helpstudents to improve their composition scores?The author conducted a three-month teaching experiment in two classes of Grade One of a second-level school in Lianjiang County,Fuzhou City,Fujian Province.With the same topics for writing practice,Class Five,the experimental class,used discourse cohesion theory teaching while Class Six,the control class,used the traditional teaching method.This study uses three research methods: writing tests,questionnaires,and interviews.The SPSS software is used to analyze the pretest and post-test data to explore whether the teaching of cohesion theory can help students improve their English writing skills.At the same time,the questionnaire surveys and interviews were used to explore the change of the students’ awareness of cohesion.The results show that there is no significant difference in the level of English writing in the two classes in the pretest.However,after three months,the students’ awareness of discourse cohesion in the experimental class(Class Five)is significantly improved than that of the control class students and the scores of English writing in the experimental class are much higher than those of the control class(Class Six).Besides,by combining discourse cohesion theory with China’s Standards of English Language Ability,teachers have become better equipped in the teaching of English writing in senior high schools.Therefore,this study proves to be of some significance in both theoretical and practical aspects.