1.1 Background of the Study
Reading is extremely important not only in our daily life but also in both teaching andlearning English in senior high school. According to Carrell (1984) reading is by far the mostimportant of the four skills in second language learning for many students, especially inlearning English as a second or foreign language (ESL/EFL). Particularly this is true forstudents in senior high school in China. The newly published New Curriculum Standard ofSenior English (trial edition) (2017) clearly states: “It is basic and essential to makecomprehensive ability in listening, speaking, reading and writing, especially in cultivatingstudents’ reading ability.” Besides, it is obviously that reading comprehension plays a veryimportant role in different kinds of exams, especially in the National Matriculation EnglishTest (NMET) in China. Now, researchers of English reading are paying much attention toreading than ever before. Teachers and students also spend much time in both teaching andlearning reading activities. However, the results are not very satisfactory. Therefore, it is still atough job to improve students’ reading competence.Tracing the nature of reading comprehension, we find that reading comprehension is avery complicated cognitive and psychological process (Carrel and Joanne, 1989). As early asthe 19thcentury, a great number of western psychologists and linguists start to study thereading comprehension process (Van Els, el al., 1984). It is a turning point from theperspective of psychological and sociolinguistic studies in understanding the reading process.From then on, it opened a new era for reading research. Furthermore, it is not regarded as avery simple process of decoding the written symbols any more, but an active and fluentprocess which involves the reader and the reading material in building meaning.
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1.2 Significance and Purpose of the Study
Second language learning needs many skills which we have four basic and essential ones:reading, listening, speaking and writing, among which reading and listening provide input forthe learners, while speaking and writing provide output. It is well known that no input meansno output. According to Krashen (Ellis 1997) input is one of the most important elementswhich affect learners’ second language acquisition. It is obviously that any learning simplycould not begin without comprehensible input in right levels. Reading is a process—both social and mental—to abstract and process information fromwritten text. It is also an active and fluent process which involves the reader and the readingmaterial in building meaning. It is an essential and important part in both teaching andlearning English as a second or foreign language (ESL/EFL). It means that both teachers andstudents attach importance to the study of reading comprehension and try to find out moreeffective and useful strategies to improve reading ability and utilize the skills.Based on the above analysis, the author believes that it is important to conduct thepresent study. The significance of the study can be listed in the following:First, from the practical significance, it can broaden the practical application ofbasic-level of relevance theory and accumulate some valuable implications for Englishteachers to perfect in the teaching reading activities.Second, from t，英语论文题目，英语毕业论文
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