cultural background information
Moderators: Dimitris, maneki neko2, Lorikeet, Enrico Palazzo, superpeach, cecil2, Mr. Kalgukshi2
-
MaggieWang
- Posts: 4
- Joined: Fri Oct 14, 2005 6:51 am
cultural background information
I am an English teacher in senior high school in China. I want to get more information about relationship between cultural background information and English reading comprehension. Especially know how to define the "reading comrehension". If any specialist can give me some guidance,thank you .
-
JuanTwoThree
- Posts: 947
- Joined: Tue Sep 14, 2004 11:30 am
- Location: Spain
I´m no specialist but I would imagine that any definition of reading comprehension is partly conditioned by cultural background. Students from some cultures seem to feel the need to understand every word and its nuances before they feel they "understand" .
Google Scholar to the rescue:
www.scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%22cul ... hension%22
Google Scholar to the rescue:
www.scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%22cul ... hension%22
(Cultural) background information is crucial when trying to comprehend language--written or otherwise. Here's an example you may have run across yourself as an English speaker in China. You're watching the TV news in Chinese, and you see a story that you just read about in the English-language newspaper. Because you already have the background information on this story, the TV news story is that much easier to understand, even though it's in a foreign language and has a slightly different emphasis than the English story you read. The point is, if you're already familiar with a topic then new information is easier to add to your knowledge base.
When students are reading in a foreign language, if the concepts of the story are completely foreign to them as well then it's much more difficult. Rural Chinese students reading about, for instance, cooking at home with family would think--okay, I don't know all the vocab words, but I've been in this situation before so I can make educated guesses and figure out what they story's about. On the other hand, if the rural Chinese students were reading a story about, say, Passover prayers, they might have somewhat more difficulty making educated guesses about unfamiliar details.
When students are reading in a foreign language, if the concepts of the story are completely foreign to them as well then it's much more difficult. Rural Chinese students reading about, for instance, cooking at home with family would think--okay, I don't know all the vocab words, but I've been in this situation before so I can make educated guesses and figure out what they story's about. On the other hand, if the rural Chinese students were reading a story about, say, Passover prayers, they might have somewhat more difficulty making educated guesses about unfamiliar details.