The Application Of Discourse Construction In Cloze Test Teaching In Senior High School English

The cloze test was first introduced into China’s college entrance examination in1978.After more than 40 years of development,cloze test has become increasingly mature and perfect as a required test for the college entrance examination in all provinces and cities in China.The reason why cloze test can become the required test type for the college entrance examination of all provinces and cities in China is that it has important test significance.The essence of cloze test is a semantically complete text with 20 key words dug out.The examinees need to use their original knowledge and experience to reconstruct the fragmented text.It can be seen that cloze test is to test students’ ability to use language comprehensively in a text.It not only tests students’ ability to use basic language knowledge,but also tests students’ ability to read the text.Therefore,many experts in the college entrance examination generally believe that cloze is the most difficult of all the test types in the college entrance examination.During the nine years of English teaching in senior high school,the author found that many students in her school got full marks in listening test,reading comprehension test,grammar blank filling test and essay correction test while few students got full marks in cloze test.Many students lost serious marks in cloze test,and the score rate was very low.About 40% of the students could not get half of the marks,so cloze test became the most difficult test for students.Not only students are afraid to do cloze,but teachers are also afraid to teach cloze.In order to solve the teaching difficulty and pain point of "students are afraid of learning and teachers are difficult to teach",the author conducted a 10-month teaching research in a middle school in Jianshui,Yunnan,from August 2021 to June 2022.The author set the two senior three classes as the experimental objects and other classes at the same grade and level as the reference objects,and then applied discourse construction to the cloze teaching of the two experimental classes,trying to solve the problem that has been puzzling high school English teachers and students from the following three aspects:(1)What are the current problems and confusions in the teaching of English cloze test in our high school?(2)What factors contribute to the weak discourse construction ability of English cloze test among high school students in our school?(3)Based on the concept of discourse construction,what strategies should high school English teachers and students in our school adopt to improve students’ cloze test discourse construction ability?Constructivism proposes that knowledge is not automatically transmitted to the learner’s brain,but is constructed by the learner based on original knowledge and experience,decoding and encoding new information again.Under the guidance of constructivism,this study believes that the process of students completing cloze is a process of actively constructing a text,combining their existing knowledge and experience to gradually complete the fragmented text,and finally form a text that can convey complete meaning.However,the process of constructing discourse is not easy and will be hindered by various factors,which is the fundamental reason for "students are afraid of learning and teachers are difficult to teach".From the perspective of discourse construction,this study first makes clear what factors affect students’ discourse construction ability in our school through questionnaires and interviews;then integrate constructivism theory,discourse analysis theory,schema theory,gestalt psychology and other theories,and apply them to the cloze teaching to help students successfully complete the discourse construction.After a 10-month follow-up survey,the final research results show that applying constructivism theory,discourse analysis theory,schema theory and gestalt psychology to the teaching of English cloze in senior high school can help students successfully complete the discourse construction of a cloze and improve their discourse reading ability.This study has brought some enlightenment to the teaching and learning of English cloze in our school.On the one hand,in the teaching of cloze in senior high school,teachers should improve their teaching methods,abandon the traditional teaching mode of "taking words and grammar as the center",establish discourse awareness,design and implement cloze teaching based on discourse,and correctly handle the relationship between vocabulary,grammar and discourse.The three teaching modes of "micro cloze","blind completion training",and "text adaptation" proposed by the author can better cultivate students’ textual competence.At the same time,teachers should,under the guidance of constructivism,strive to create a classroom atmosphere of "students first,teachers second",abandon cramming teaching,and correctly position the role of teachers and students.On the other hand,students are the main body of completing the text construction of cloze test.They should actively change their learning methods and strategies under the guidance of teachers,and actively construct the text based on their own knowledge and experience: First,they should learn to read as a whole under the guidance of gestalt psychology.Secondly,in the process of doing exercise,they should take the text as a unit and learn to read different text types under the guidance of macro discourse analysis;learn to use discourse skills to find clues from context under the guidance of micro discourse analysis.Finally,the improvement of discourse construction ability of cloze is inseparable from appropriate training.Schema theory provides scientific guidance for the training of cloze.