A Study On English Reading Teaching Based On Discourse Analysis Theory In Junior High School

Nowadays,the way of “reading” has become more diversified.Meanwhile,the connection between reading and social life becomes closer.Traditional English teaching has its unique advantages in expanding students’ vocabulary and improving students’ translation ability.However,it pays too much attention to understanding words and sentences.According to discourse analysis theory,reading teaching should focus on analyzing the discourse from both micro perspective（context and cohesion theory）and macro perspective（schema theory）.Therefore,students can understand the writer’s writing intention,background knowledge and language system better.This research attempts to apply discourse analysis theory to improve students’ reading ability and their participation in class:（1）What’s the influence of discourse analysis theory on students’ participation in class?（2）What’s the influence of discourse analysis theory on students’ reading ability?The relevant theories of this study are context analysis,cohesion theory and schema theory.The teaching experiment is conducted in two classes from grade eight in a junior high school in Wuhan.Then,the results of questionnaires and tests are analyzed by both SPSS 20.0 and Excel,while the changes of students’ ability and their participation in class are carried out in the form of interviews.It is found that:（1）The application of discourse analysis has a positive effect on students’ participation in class,especially on behavioral participation and cognitive participation.（2）After the experiment,the reading scores in the experimental class have been improved significantly,while the scores in the control class haven’t been changed significantly.It shows up in the difference of reading scores between the two classes in inferring questions,word guessing questions,detailed question and main idea questions.In addition,the results of post-interview also show that students’ ability of guessing and summarizing has been improved.That is to say,the application of discourse analysis theory can improve students’ English reading ability in some degree.