图式包括语言图式、内容图式和形式图式,这三种图式决定阅读能力。语言图式是指对构成阅读材料的词汇、语法的掌握,是理解文章的基础,该图式越丰富,阅读的成功性就越大。内容图式是指读者对语篇背景知识的熟悉程度。学生时常会出现背了单词却看不懂语篇的现象,如:It was Friday and soon they’d go out and get drunk. 中国学生很可能理解为“星期五到了,他们很快就出去喝酒”,可星期五与出去喝酒有何关系呢?其实,星期五是英国的发薪日,这样一说,学生很容易就能理解该句的意思是“星期五发薪日到了,他们马上会出去喝得酩酊大醉”。
再如:By voting against mass transportation, voters have chosen to continue on a road to ruin. Our interstate highways , those much-praised golden avenues built to whisk suburban travelers in and out of downtown, have turned into the world’s most expensive parking lots. That expense is economic. These highways have created great walls separating neighborhood from neighborhood, disrupting the complex social connections that help make a city livable.文章的结构及词汇并不复杂,相对于高一、高二学生来说可能有些难度,但高三学生如果有些背景知识,理解起来应该没有多大问题。文章说了美国的私人汽车带来的问题:由于私人汽车的泛滥导致了公路的过度拥挤,交通事故的频发,且公众减少了对公共交通工具的依赖,往日人们在公共交通工具上还可以交流一下,而现在由于私家车的增多,办不到了。这一暗含的背景知识对帮助学生理解文章至关重要。形式图式则是理解文章体裁的能力。文章的体裁是多种多样的,如故事、寓言、说明文、议论文、科技作品、诗歌等,不同的文章有不同的写作手法和表达方式,对文章的体裁、结构越熟悉,读起来越容易,阅读质量就越高,速度就越快。看下面的语篇。
(1)“You didn’t let me tell you how lovely you look.” he murmured after a long, sweet time had passed between them. …He laughed softly at the memory, and she joined in gaily. She started to tell him something, but his lips claimed her own, masterfully silencing the words that no longer needed to be spoken.
(2)Once upon a time there was a little girl called Maria. Her mother was dead, and she lived with her father and two sisters.
(3)Mrs Ferrars died on the night of the 16th-17th September—a Thursday, I was sent for at eight o’clock on Friday morning. There was nothing to be done. She had been dead some hours. There was no signs of fighting or killing.
(4)Mild Seven
An encounter with tenderness
—Japan’s best-selling cigarette
(5)Two boys believed to be from London died and seven others were injured in theSnowdonia mountain range yesterday…