On Enhancing Students’ Discourse Competence in Reading

Abstract

Discourse competence, as important index in discourse analysis, plays an important role in developing learners’ receptive and productive skills in English. With good discourse competence, learners can understand spoken or written texts better, both at the local and global levels. Besides, they can produce more cohesive discourse to promote their speaking and writing abilities. However, English teaching classroom often focuses heavily on linguistic competence, weighing too much on vocabulary, and grammar. This paper aims to explore the relationship between cohesion and coherence and how to develop students’ discourse competence in reading.