An Empirical Research Of The Effect Of Frame Knowledge On English Reading Ability Of Middle School Students

The reading abilities are very important for the English learners. We find that many teachers and students spend a lot of time trying to improve the reading comprehension. However, the effect is not obvious. Our predecessors’studies imply us that the linguistic entities and the background knowledge play determining role in understanding the passages. How can we connect the linguistic entities and the background knowledge well?Fillmore believes that the frame ’structures’ the meanings of the linguistic entities, and the linguistic entities’evoke’the frame. In the process of using a language, the speakers or the authors use the linguistic entities which are recognized as grounded in certain frames to project the frames in their mind, while the listeners or the readers use the linguistic entities to evoke the frames in their mind. The reading teaching model directed by Frame Semantics emphasizes the close relationship between the linguistic entities and the frame knowledge the linguistic entities evoke, so as to help the students to understand the passages.Two questions have been put forward:1) Can frame knowledge help improve the students’reading ability effectively?2) Can frame knowledge help improve the students’reading speed effectively?During the research, the author uses the qualitative and quantitative methods, which are experiment, interview and class observation to obtain the data. All the subjects are from Guangzhou No.116Middle School which locates in the rural area. We use the same teaching materials as recommended. In the experiment, the controlled group was taught by an English teacher in the same grade with traditional method, while the experimental group was taught by the author using the reading teaching model directed by Frame Semantics.The author observed the classes of the controlled group and the experimental group with the same teaching content on the same day at least once a week. We found that the classroom atmosphere of the controlled group was very bored, and the students’reading speeds were rather slow. On the contrary, the classroom atmosphere of the experimental group was very active, and the students’reading speeds were rather fast.We conducted two reading tests before and after the experiment respectively, then we used the independent t test to analyze the data and find that there was great significant difference after the experiment, while there was no before the experiment. During the pretest and the posttest, we used the timer and asked the students to show the cards to record the students’reading speeds. We found that the reading speeds of the students from the experimental were improved rapidly after experiment.Before and after the experiment, the author interviewed the English teacher teaching the controlled group and some students from the controlled group and the experimental group. During the interviews with the teacher before and after the experiment, we found that the teacher believed the students’ reading abilities could be improved as long as they had rich vocabulary. So she helped the students to acquire as many of English words as possible of which were limited in the acquisition of the Chinese meanings. However, the students’ reading abilities cannot be improved.The interviews with the students from the controlled group and the experimental group before the experiment show us the following aspects.1) Some of the readings were easy and some were difficult,2) They didn’t have enough confidence in doing reading comprehension part.3) Sometimes they could guess the meanings of the new words.4) Sometimes they could finish the reading test in the given time. The interviews with the students from the controlled group show us that the phenomenon mentioned above still happened to them. On the contrary, the students from the experimental group reported the following data.1) The reading comprehension tests were very easy.2) They could guess the meanings of the new words.3) They could finish the reading test within the given time.4) They have confidence in doing reading test.The research shows us three major findings.1) The enriching the students’frame knowledge can effectively improve the reading abilities and the reading speeds of the students of different levels. The frame knowledge is referred to the cognitive frames and the interactional frames, as well as their frame elements including the conceptual frame elements and the image frame elements.2) The topic teaching which is promoted by the New Curriculum helps the students to enrich the frame knowledge systematically and can effectively improve the students’ reading abilities and reading speeds.3) To grasp the words is the premise for the students to understand a passage because the words project or evoke the frame knowledge. The author further proposes the criteria and the ways of helping the students to enrich their frame knowledge.