The background knowledge means the knowledge of the readers about the world. This kind of knowledge includes the language knowledge and the non-language knowledge. The background knowledge plays an important role in the reading comprehension process. If you are familiar with the background of the passage, you can still understand the passage though there are still many unknown words. But if you are totally unfamiliar with the background information, you will feel at a loss event there are few new words. Thus, it is essential to activate the background knowledge to understand the passage better and more fluently.
When the foreign students go to learn Chinese in Yunnan, the teachers will tell you that there are several steps to activate the background knowledge. The steps include four major processes. The first is to lead the foreign students to understand the title of a passage. The title reflects the main ideas of a passage. If the title of an article is Diet of Beijing, one can know that the article may talk about the features of the Beijing foods. One will easily think of what to eat in Beijing. That’s what the students may imagine.
The second step is to activate the background knowledge through asking questions. Some articles do not give relevant background knowledge of topic, so the teachers can raise questions about the background information to make the students know something about the articles. Then the students will find satisfaction when they read the articles. The third step is to give some simple background knowledge about the articles which will be learned in the Mandarin learning courses. If the students are lack of relevant background knowledge, the teachers have responsibility to offer some simple background information to make the students associate to some possible plots. The fourth step is to cultivate the habits of the students to associate to the learned knowledge. The aim of teaching is not to teach. Once the students learn the right way to learn and associate, the students can learn by themselves. The teachers should remind the students to actively associate the learned knowledge to new knowledge.
In the process of activating background knowledge, one point should be paid attention to. The learners should verify the opinion of theirs is consistent to the opinion of the writers’. The leaner should not use the knowledge of theirs to replace the opinion of the writers‘.