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背景知识对英语阅读理解能力的影响和积累方法

2017-01-27 01:02 1. Introduction
As the international communication and cooperation have increased, English becomes more and more important in modern society. It becomes a main way to acquire advanced culture and scientific technology. Learning English has never been of more importance in our society than today.
However, reading is often considered the most difficult in terms of literacy, accuracy, and efficiency. Generally speaking, improving reading skills requires more time of training than improving listening or speaking. What makes EFL learners feel that reading is the most difficult course to handle? What factors affect the reading comprehension of EFL learners? This essay considers that background knowledge is the key factor affecting reading comprehension of EFL learners. This essay firstly gives a brief introduction of two kinds of background knowledge, content background knowledge and formal background knowledge, and then discusses how background knowledge affects reading comprehension of EFL learners. At last, it will present some techniques on how to build up one’s background knowledge, especially formal background knowledge.
2. The Theory of Background Knowledge
The technical term for background knowledge is schemata theory. “Schemata theory describes how knowledge is represented and how new knowledge is integrated with a network of prior knowledge. A powerful feature of schema theory is that it helps explain how new learning is integrated with an individual’s existing knowledge. It explains how we learn, modify, and use information we acquire through our experiences.”[1] P241 There are two types of schemata (a plural form of schema) or background knowledge, content schemata and formal schemata.
2.1 Content Schemata
“Content schemata are claimed to be background knowledge about the content area of a text---a text about washing clothes, celebrating New Year’s Eve in Hawaii, building a canoe, or about the economy of Mexico, the history of Canada, problems of nuclear, etc. In other words, content schemata refer to one’s general knowledge of the world.”[2] P45 Possessing enough knowledge about the area of a topic will significantly aid the comprehension of the text. For example, a group of Chinese EFL learners with sufficient background knowledge about world history, politic, science, economy, etc. may understand a text about the Second World War better than those who lack such knowledge.
2.2Formal Schemata
“Formal schemata refer to background knowledge of formal, rhetorical, organizational structures of different kinds of texts.”[3] P45 In other words, part of our background knowledge includes information about, and expectations of, differences among rhetorical structures---e.g. differences in genre, differences in the structure of fables, simple stories, scientific texts newspaper articles, poetries, etc.” [4] P45 It is well known that different types of articles use different kinds of rhetorical structures and vocabularies. Having adequate formal background knowledge will be of much help to EFL learners.