背景知识对英语阅读理解能力的影响和积累方法(4)
2017-01-27 01:02
导读：Content background knowledge is mainly about one’s general knowledge about the world. Building up this kind of background knowledge is mainly attributed to one’s daily accumulation, such as extens
Content background knowledge is mainly about one’s general knowledge about the world. Building up this kind of background knowledge is mainly attributed to one’s daily accumulation, such as extensively reading, daily life experiences, surrounding culture and environment and so on. It has no other cut-ways or techniques to build up one’s abundant content background knowledge, except EFL learners pay attention to select suitable reading materials. The following passages will focus on discussing the importance of materials selection.
First, reading material should be suitable for EFL learners; it is not only important for EFL learners’ reading comprehension, but also important for them to build up appropriate background knowledge. One of the most obvious reasons why a particular content schema may fail to exist for an EFL learner is that the schema is culturally specific and is not part of a particular learner’s cultural background. For example:
(3)“What could John expect? He had left his wet swimming trunks in the dark closet for over a week. Of course, they had begun to mildew.”
This sentence supposedly contains within it enough experimental content to explain the word “mildew”, But some EFL learners from arid regions may not understand this sentence, because they may lack related culture background knowledge and don’t have such an experience.
Second, EFL learners should read more and extensively and build up more content background knowledge
Another example also indicates that reading more and building up more content background knowledge, which is quite curial for EFL learners in reading comprehension.
(4)“At the way bottom of the earth, high in the Trans-Antarctic Mountains, with the sun glaring at midnight through a hold in the sky. I stood in the unbelievable coldness and talked with a scientist in the late fall of 1988 about the tunnel he was digging through time. Slipping his parka back to reveal a badly burned face that was cracked and peeling, he pointed to the annual layers of ice in a core sample dug from the glacier on which we are standing. He moved his finger in time to the ice two decades ago. “Here’s where the US Congress passed the Clean Air Act.” He said. At the bottom of the world, two continents away from Washington, D.C., even a small reduction in one country’s emissions had changed the amount of pollution found in the remotest and least accessible place on earth.”[7] P118
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Some EFL learners will find the above passage too difficult to understand what on earth it wants to tell about. But if some EFL learners know about which was written by former vice-president of American, who was an environmental protector, and if they also know some background knowledge about environmental protection, they will find it much easier to understand this passage and judge the attitude of the author.
Therefore, if EFL learners read more of a content area, they will build up more content background knowledge. But they should choose materials, which are suitable for them and effective for them to build up appropriate background knowledge.
