Embodiment-based Reading

In the study of English, reading plays a very important role. However, according to the present situation, the teaching method for reading is still subject to the traditional way. That is, most reading classes focus on the translation of the reading materials and the study of language points, especially, the explanation of new words and grammar. In such process, the teacher-centred teaching method always dominates the whole class. Although it seems to teach what should be taught in theory, it does not arouse students' interest and potential abilities.Our basic principle of education is to cultivate students' learning abilities. The same is true of reading. The goals of reading are to improve students' reading comprehension, to enlarge their vocabulary, strengthen their cultural background, and to foster their abilities of logic thinking, such as, the ability to assume and judge, the ability to analyze and induce, the ability to reason and verify, etc. Therefore, our teaching should emphasize on how to improve students' reading skills and their abilities to analyze and solve problemsIndeed, educators kept on exploring effective reading theories and teaching methods all the time. From the traditional reading theory which stresses the teaching of words and sentences, to the cognitive theory which thinks reading is a psycholinguistic guessing game and the schema theory that emphasizes the interactive function between the reader and the text, the study of reading, especially the study of teaching method is in a state of developing.Cognitive science is a newly developing psychological discipline, which is described as "a systemative inquiry into our thinkselves, a discipline devoted to exploring how our minds work" (Wenden & Rubin, 1987: 4)). In cognitive theory, learners are viewed as active information-processors. In other words, learner are actively engaged in the learning process—selectively attending to incoming data, hypothesizing, comparing, elaborating, reconstructing meaning and integrating it with previously stored information for future use. Therefore, the research in cognitive psychology focuses on the essence of knowledge, the way to acquire and use knowledgeand the active role of learners' mental activities in the process of language acquisition. Cognitive psychologists apply this theory to foreign language teaching, and some linguists also advocate regarding language acquisition as a psychological process. Accordingly, cognitive approach gains ground in the teaching of foreign language.As a matter of fact, the theoretical basis of cognitive approach is some basic theories in linguistic, psychology and education which are relevant to cognitive science. The application of cognitive approach reflects the achievement of the research among the disciplines above. No matter Chomsky's transformational generative grammar, the new understanding of experience in cognitive linguistic, or the theory of genetic epistemology in cognitive psychology, the learning views in constructivism, they are all the theoretical basis for the forming of cognitive approach. These theories have one sameness, that is, they all focus on the function of learners' mental activities and advocate the exertion of subjective initiative.The application of cognitive approach in the teaching of foreign language is a new practice in the recent years. Many scholars {$M.%L> 2000; ^TJ-fe, 2001) attempt to put the cognitive approach into specific teaching. This thesis also tries to use a new cognitive approach in the teaching of reading and names it embodiment.Embodiment is a term in cognitive linguistics. Lakoff (1987: 267) has ever defined this term as our collective biological capacities and our physical and social experiences as beings functioning in our environment. He thinks that humans characterize meaning in terms of embodiment and at the same time, he summarizes three features of embodiment, that is, (1) The mind is inherently embodied; (2) Thought is mostly unconscious; (3) Abstract concepts are largely metaphorical. These features reveal to some degree the process of language acquisition in human's mind. In reality, the acquisition of knowledge is a complex information-processing system. According to the research of human's cognition, each input of new knowledge will be stored in learners' memory through the steps of filter, recognition and selection. During the process, the embodiment in human's mind plays a very important role.From these studies and researches, we can draw the conclusion that it will improve learners' ability of information processing if we emphasize the motivation of their ability of embodiment. Generally speaking, it is practical to explore learners' ability of embodiment in specific teaching because more or less, foreign language- learners possess some certain knowledge and cognitive abilities. They are capable of using these knowledge and abilities to embody the new information. In the meantime, the achievement in the study of cognition also provides some ways to stimulateembodiment, such as the metaphorical thought, the activation of schema, etc.Therefore, in the thesis, we construct a model for embodiment-based reading which aims at activating students' ability of embodiment to understand and appreciate the reading materials. In this model, we divide a whole class into six stages: goals, warming-up activities, pre-reading activities, while-reading activities, post-reading activities and integrating skills. And in every stage, we will discuss the specific ways to achieve our aims. After that, we focus on the characteristics of this model and the role of teachers. Finally, we choose a poem to practise this model and probe for the specific ways in the real teaching of reading.In short, the embodiment-based reading focuses on how to carry out the principle of stUdent-centre, and emphasizes the process of learning and the development of students' learning abilities. The whole thesis consists of six chapters and they are organized as follows:Chapter one is an introduction of the whole thesis.Chapter two introduces the theoretical basis of cognitive approach. It also includes a discussion of the essence of reading, a survey of the current teaching situation and the literature review of reading theories.Chapter three discusses the meaning of embodiment and describes its features and the ways to stimulate it.Chapter four manages to develop a model for teaching reading based on students' embodiment and discusses its major stages, characteristics and the role of teachers in this model.Chapter five is a practice of this model. A poem will be chosen and taught according to the model we discussed above.Chapter six serves as a conclusion of the thesis.