The Research On The Influence Of Cultural Background Knowledge In Improving English Reading Comprehension Ability Of Secondary Vocational Student

In December, 2008, the Ministry of Education proposed a curriculum reform in secondary vocational schools, in which reading comprehension was highlighted. This change shows that reading comprehension accounts for a larger proportion in examinations, while the number of questions about grammar is decreasing, which requires students to improve their reading ability and teachers to shift their teaching focus from grammar to reading. The study on whether the cultural background knowledge can improve students’ reading ability is rare.The present study employs tests and questionnaires to investigate students’ English learning situation in Baotou Service and Management Institute majoring Motor Repair Specialty. The purpose is to testify whether learning cultural background knowledge can improve their reading ability.The researcher first pre-tests the 100 students’ cultural background knowledge and reading capacity. The results show that most students know few about the cultural background and most of them have poor reading ability.Then after one-month teaching of background knowledge, a post-test is employed. It is shown form the post-test that students learn more cultural background knowledge and their reading ability is greatly improved. The experiment testifies that learning cultural background knowledge has a prominent influence in reading comprehension for students in secondary vocational schools.The present thesis not only provides an effective learning method for students in secondary vocational schools to improve their reading ability, but also offers a teaching method for teachers in secondary vocational schools.