Application of non-linguistic context in reading teaching is a kind of activity utilized widely in language. This is also one of the effective approaches to acquire information, broaden our view and enlarge knowledge as well as boost other language skills.

Application of non-linguistic context in reading teaching is effective in the middle school, which can improve the students’ reading comprehension and reading interests, and makes the learners study actively, which is very important because an active participation in class can be beneficial to the English learning. At the same time, it will enhance students’ confidence in study.

As we all know, the application of non-linguistic context is very useful in reading teaching. And thus, in the process of reading teaching, we should not only pay attention to linguistics context elements, but should also focus on the non-linguistics context. Only in this way could the students understand what they are reading exactly and deeply．

2. Literature Review

Application of non-linguistic context in reading teaching has gained great popularity and drawn much attention from the researchers and teachers homes and abroad with the development of linguistics. And many scholars have made various researches on it.

2.1 Related Studies in China

During the past decades, some researchers and instructors have carried out studies on the application of non-linguistic context in reading teaching in English classroom.

Li Li thought that the application of non-linguistic context is a highly valuable method to help learners to interact and guess the meaning in context. She also gave some suggestions on reading teaching. “We can make use of the specific location of situational context, such as the center of each sentence, the title of the article, the beginning and the end of the article, to guess the theme of the article” (Li Li, 2010: 127).

Guo Jia, in his paper The Non-linguistic Context and Reading Teaching in College analyzed how application of non-linguistic context in reading teaching interests and motivates the college students in a situational way. He indicated that it is quiet important to apply non-linguistic context in reading class and put forward several methods on how to apply non-linguistic context in reading teaching (Guo Ji, 2010: 154 ).

Other researchers such as Yan Mingzhou also have made a contribution to getting people familiar with the application of non-linguistic context in reading teaching ( Yan Mingzhou, 2012:48).

2.2 Related Studies Abroad

There are many researchers abroad who have been showing great interest in studying application of non-linguistic context in reading teaching concerning the concept, patterns, and characteristics. 

Brown’s studies concerned about the application of non-linguistic context. He argued that non-linguistic context mainly involves “giving a role to one or more members of a group and assigning an objective or purpose that participants must accomplish” (Brown, 2002:103). 

Cook Vivian discussed the significance of application of non-linguistic context in reading teaching. He said “non-linguistic context in reading teaching is very important in the communicative approach because they give students an opportunity to practice communicating in different social contexts” (Cook Vivian, 2000:146). 

However, various as the researches are, seldom do the researchers focus on the application of non-linguistic context theory. And the overview on the studies about application of non-linguistic context in reading teaching at home and abroad displays a lack of systematicness and comprehensiveness. 

In this paper, the author analyzes the application of non-linguistic context in reading teaching based on a case study, in order to compensate for the deficiency of predecessors.