Conocimiento previo, esquemas de género y comprensión lectora del inglés como lengua extranjera

Abstract

The aim of this thesis was to examine the role played by certain background knowledge components - linguistic, conceptual, rhetorical and strategic - in the reading comprehension of texts in English as a foreign language. This work argues in favour of the existence of genre schemata which contribute to the comprehension of texts as discourse instances immersed in a sociocultural contexto The results back the existence of a lower threshold level in the target language, from which thematic knowledge affects positively textual comprehension. Direct identification of genre types also appears as directly linked to text comprehension. The positive influence of explicit instruction over the use of genre schemata, and thus, over reading comprehension, is evidenced. The conclusions point to the pertinence of an explicit instruction that includes increasing awareness about the culturally-bound genre conventions linked to any text for students to achieve a better and more complete reading comprehension.