Chapter Four Solutions to Enrich the Cultural Knowledge 。11

    4。1 The expansion of knowledge。 11

    4。1。1 The accumulation of cultural knowledge。11

    4。1。2 Knowing comparison of Chinese and Western culture。11

4。2 The creation of interesting classroom activities 12

Chapter Five Conclusion。14

   5。1 Conclusion of study 14

References 16

On the Influence of Cultural Background Knowledge on English Text Reading

Chapter One Introduction

1。1The background

In recent years, with the development of the society, more and more people attach great importance to reading in English study。 Because reading is one of the basic skills of learning English。 As we all know that different countries have different cultures。 If you don’t know any culture of any foreign countries, you will find you have no idea of the text。 The more cultural knowledge you know , the faster you comprehend the text。 In other words, grasping cultural background knowledge is an indispensable part of leaning English。论文网

Besides, English teachers found that, during their teaching process, their students always make understanding errors which are related to the cultural differences between Chinese and English。 So they have gradually realized the important relationship between the cultural background and English reading。 However, while teaching reading comprehension, lots of English teachers only emphasize the language points, the grammar and so on。 They seldom explain the inner meaning of the passage, that is the cultural background of passage。 Obviously, this kind of teaching method is not very helpful to improve the students’ comprehension of the English text reading。

1。2 Significance and Purpose

Reading ability is an important standard to test our English level。 Nowadays, each English text paper contains a reading comprehension which is considered as the most difficult part because it requires learners to have perfect ability of grammars and   even the cultural background knowledge。 The survey found that many learners with an abundant vocabulary and lots of grammar didn’t know what the passage said。 That is to say, the more cultural background knowledge one knows, the more deeper he understands the English text。 Culture has established close connection with the language。 To understand a reading comprehension, we should acknowledge some related foreign culture to some extent。 As far as cultural background knowledge is concerned, Carrel(1983) said:“ In the EFL/ESL classroom, we must be particularly sensitive to reading problems that result from the implicit cultural background knowledge presupposed by a text。” Thus it can be seen that, comprehending a text is an interactive process in which the cultural background knowledge connecting the text is closely related to what the readers possess。 In conclusion, without any doubts, cultural background knowledge is so helpful that it could arouse learners’ interest in English, promote the comprehension about the text, and even improve the intercultural communication competence。

Nowadays, people pay relatively less attention to the cultural background knowledge, so the key point of my essay is to analyze the relationship between the English text reading and cultural background knowledge in order to improve our reading ability。 

My essay consists of five parts。 They are the introduction, literature review, the influence of the cultural background knowledge, some solutions to enrich cultural background knowledge and conclusion。 

Chapter Two  Literature Review