Schema is known to play an important role in reading comprehension. The schema embodying the learners background knowledge of cultural familiar materials facilitates the understanding of the text （Pritchard, 1990）. ...Schema is known to play an important role in reading comprehension. The schema embodying the learners background knowledge of cultural familiar materials facilitates the understanding of the text （Pritchard, 1990）. Also Steffensen, Joag-Dev, and Anderson （1979） and Nelson （1987） proposed that the schemata embodying background knowledge influenced how well the text would be comprehended. However, Hudson （1982） and Carrell （1984） found there was no significant background effect in advanced level learners. From those studies, it seems that background effect is different at different language proficiency levels. Thus, the present study examines the interaction between background knowledge and language proficiency in reading comprehension. The participants were freshmen of National Chiayi University. They were divided into three language proficiency levels based on the General English Proficiency Test. Four reading comprehension tests were constructed to assess their reading comprehension： cultural familiar/unfamiliar text and topic familiar/unfamiliar text. The results of this study showed that participants had better performance on the culture/topic familiar text than the culture/topic unfamiliar text. Thus the findings suggest that the teacher can use teaching activities, such as pre-reading activities or vocabulary teaching to increase the background knowledge when teaching readings to EFL （English as a foreign language） learners展开更多
The study investigates: (1) how different idiom types, classified on the basis of a cross-linguistic comparison of Chinese and English idioms in terms of conceptual basis, affect English idiom comprehension as reveale...The study investigates: (1) how different idiom types, classified on the basis of a cross-linguistic comparison of Chinese and English idioms in terms of conceptual basis, affect English idiom comprehension as revealed from both the general performance and the on-line processing strategies adopted by Chinese EFL learners at different proficiency levels, and (2) to what extent can the observed learner behavior be accounted for within the theoretical framework of idiom comprehension. The study has provided empirical evidence for the configuration hypothesis of idiom comprehension.展开更多
文摘Schema is known to play an important role in reading comprehension. The schema embodying the learners background knowledge of cultural familiar materials facilitates the understanding of the text （Pritchard, 1990）. Also Steffensen, Joag-Dev, and Anderson （1979） and Nelson （1987） proposed that the schemata embodying background knowledge influenced how well the text would be comprehended. However, Hudson （1982） and Carrell （1984） found there was no significant background effect in advanced level learners. From those studies, it seems that background effect is different at different language proficiency levels. Thus, the present study examines the interaction between background knowledge and language proficiency in reading comprehension. The participants were freshmen of National Chiayi University. They were divided into three language proficiency levels based on the General English Proficiency Test. Four reading comprehension tests were constructed to assess their reading comprehension： cultural familiar/unfamiliar text and topic familiar/unfamiliar text. The results of this study showed that participants had better performance on the culture/topic familiar text than the culture/topic unfamiliar text. Thus the findings suggest that the teacher can use teaching activities, such as pre-reading activities or vocabulary teaching to increase the background knowledge when teaching readings to EFL （English as a foreign language） learners
文摘The study investigates: (1) how different idiom types, classified on the basis of a cross-linguistic comparison of Chinese and English idioms in terms of conceptual basis, affect English idiom comprehension as revealed from both the general performance and the on-line processing strategies adopted by Chinese EFL learners at different proficiency levels, and (2) to what extent can the observed learner behavior be accounted for within the theoretical framework of idiom comprehension. The study has provided empirical evidence for the configuration hypothesis of idiom comprehension.
