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Chapter 1 Introduction

1.1 Research Background
Reading is always an important way of input in EFL learning. In recent years anurge to strengthen students’ listening and speaking skills is identified in “College EnglishMajor Syllabus”, but in China the major way of input can only be reading for the timebeing. Therefore we are in no position to stop the study on reading and readinginstruction. In addition, for English majors, reading course, either intensive or extensive,is far from effective. Traditional “grammar-translation” teaching method is still dominantin many English reading classes (Li Hui, 1999).

阅读在英语学习的输入始终是一个重要的方式。近年来确定在“大学英语专业教学大纲”的冲动，以加强学生的听，说能力，但在中国的主要途径输入只能阅读时间。因此，我们在任何位置停止阅读和阅读教学的研究。此外，英语专业，阅读课，无论是密集的或广泛的，是远远有效。传统的“语法翻译”的教学方法仍然占主导地位，在许多英语阅读班（李辉，1999年）。

Students are also tired of reading coursesince they have been taught in a similar way for more than 10 years in their Englishclassroom as well as in Chinese classroom. In view of this a reform needs to be carriedout in reading instruction in order to cultivate students’ interest in reading and promotethe effectiveness of reading course. What is more, English majors need to gain acompetitive edge on non-English majors especially in professional settings. According toCai Jigang (2007), the language level of non-English majors almost parallels that ofEnglish majors when they enter college. In quite a few universities, especially in keyuniversities, English major courses are also offered to non-English majors in the last twoyears of their college study. As a result, their language level is very close to that ofEnglish majors. Some of them even go beyond. Under such circumstances Englishmajors may find themselves in a very embarrassing situation in job-hunting since theyknow little about other fields or professions except English language itself, which givesthem no advantage over non-English majors. So they need to familiarize themselves withdiscourses of other profession, which will help them perform competently in their futurecareer either as translators or as teachers, or whatever. In this regard, genre-basedteaching approach is a good alternative for teachers to instruct English majors to learndifferent professional discourses, which will make English majors more competitive in professional context. Just as Bhatia (2008) suggested, a multidimensional view of genrecan “bridge the gap between the ideal world of classroom and the real world ofprofessional practice”.
In the past two decades genre analysis has become “one of the most important andinfluential concepts in language education” (Hyland, 2007:149). Some scholars andteachers abroad and in China have applied genre analysis to L1 and L2 or EFL teaching,especially to the teaching of writing. But it is not sufficiently discussed in the context ofreading.However, some of the pioneering work concerning reading has proved theeffectiveness of genre knowledge in EFL or ESL reading comprehension (Keller-Cohen，1986；Littlefair, 1991; Bernhardt, 1991; Salager-Meyer, 1991; Hyon, 2001). Sunny Hyon,under the guidence of Swales, adopted a genre-based approach to ESL reading inaccordance with Swales’ genre theory, which established as a good example for readinginstruction (Wang Shixian, 1999; Hyon, 2002). But her research is conducted in targetlanguage environment. Thus student’s genre knowledge may be acquired not solely fromclassroom teaching.<本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。