The Role Of Background Knowledge To The Teaching Of English Reading In Higher Vocational Colleges

With the reform of language teaching and learning approach, The Basic Demand of English Teaching at Higher Vocational Colleges put forward the development of students' cultural awareness in English course, teachers should pay attention to cultural background knowledge in classes and create English-learning circumstances in Higher Vocational College English reading. For a long time, under the influence of the learning of the traditional pedagogy, it has been thought that any reader can comprehend a text well if such factors as vocabulary and grammar are not beyond his knowledge. However, the reading effect seems unsatisfying, which poses a great challenge for teaching reading.English reading is the input of language learning. Once the students possess the ability of reading, they can to learn by themselves, and they build up a firm foundation for their further studies. It is of vital importance that our students be taught to read effectively and critically. Schema theory holds the view that reader's background knowledge play a significant role in the process of reading. Comprehending a text is an interactive process between reader and the text. Any text, either spoken or written, does not by itself carry meaning, it only provides directions for listeners or readers as to how they should retrieve or construct meaning from their own previously acquired knowledge. This previously acquired knowledge is called background knowledge. Background knowledge involves all the knowledge the reader acquired before, such as linguistic knowledge, social knowledge, cultural knowledge, common senses, etc. When a reader applies his background knowledge to guide him through reading, he adopts the top--down process to make prediction and assumptions about the incoming text. Simultaneously, he uses the bottom--up process to acquire information from decoding words, phrases and sentences in the text. This process assists him to be aware of the new information and to make proper adjustments. The continuous interaction of the reader and the text leads to an agreement on the text,...