English Text Pattern And Chinese Students' English Reading

Cultivating the reading comprehension of students is one of the goals of English education in China. Furthermore, testing reading comprehension serves as the most important item to inspect the students' English level. We used to think reading as a decoding process only on the visual information, so our English reading course mainly emphasized the teaching of language knowledge. Teachers count on that students' developing reading comprehension can be achieved by increasing their language knowledge. However, that is not the case. English learners of different levels in our country have the same difficulty in understanding the main idea of the text and stress emphasis on the understanding of words and sentences while neglecting the thesis of the whole text. To work out the solution to this problem, this paper aims at revealing the covert factors that influence the English reading comprehension of Chinese students.Conducted by the modern reading theories, we have realized that reading is a decoding process on the visual information with non-visual information involved in. Non-visual information includes not only the existing world knowledge in one's mind but the knowledge about the pattern English-speaking people use to build up the text. Therefore, the process non-visual information involved in also includes the process during which a reader's decoding way make coincident with the author's coding method. This process, in other words, is a process during which the reader explores the author's thought pattern. Thought pattern is closely connected with the feature of culture, for with different cultural background, people have the different preferred thought pattern. Considered from this angle, Chinese students' English reading is across-culture communication process. This paper analyses the Chinese students' English reading within the framework of cross-culture communication andlists the main differences between the two kinds of text patterns, which result in the obstacle of understanding during the process of Chinese students' English reading.This paper first gives the definition of "text" and "text pattern" and states the relations between text pattern and thought pattern as well as culture. Then it summarizes respectively the features of English text pattern and Chinese text pattern and explores the factors which create the differences between them梩heir different culture and different preferred thought pattern. Following that, the paper introduces the foreign scholars' researching in English text pattern梩hree kinds of typical English text patterns raised by Hoey and their structure and features, together with the introduction of Chinese students' English text pattern, the result of a large scale survey. Finally it analyses the suggestions we can get from text pattern theories, that is, it is necessary for Chinese students to master consciously the English text pattern and it can help them practice the advanced reading skill and efficient reading method. At the same time, to help students master English text pattern we should combine the teaching of English text pattern theories with practices matching with it.The emphasized part of the paper lies in the introduction of the features of the two kinds of text pattern, English text pattern and Chinese text pattern, and the introduction of the factors that create the differences -the different culture and different preferred thought pattern. Also it introduces the three kinds of English text pattern, General-Particular pattern, Problem-Solution Pattern and Matching Pattern. The difficult point of the paper is what suggestions we can get from the text pattern theories to Chinese students' English reading, because of the lack of research and exploring in this field by scholars at home and abroad.Since the English text pattern heavily depends on the cultural nature, it is difficult for Chinese students to summarize the English text pattern by themselvesonly through practice. And it is very important for Chinese students to master English text pattern, for it can help the...