The Application Of Scheme Theory On Improving Reading Comprehension At Higher Vocational Colleges

It is generally acknowledged that reading is an essential part in English teaching at higher vocational colleges. Reading is one of the four essential language skills- listening, speaking, reading and writing. For college students, reading is a key to success in their higher education. Reading can build one's vocabulary and make a person write better. Reading provides the opportunity to learn new knowledge and to acquire new skills. So, improving reading comprehension is an important purpose of English learning.At higher vocational colleges, the students are not so good at English. As the traditional comprehension practices place the teacher firmly at the centre of the classroom, all power and control are in the hands of the teachers. The teacher chooses the texts; sets the learning activities; and even decides what the meaning is that student should acquire as part of the reading process. Under the traditional comprehension, the students are only passive receptors. They receive what the teachers say without forming their own opinion and understanding of the text. In a long run, the students lose interest in reading English.As language teaching has become more learner-focused, teachers should adapt to the efficient teaching method. Schema theory is regarded as the most efficient and reasonable one in improving reading competence. At higher vocational colleges, reading is an important part of English teaching. Thus, this paper makes a further study on the effects of the schema theory and functions of the three schemata in improving non-English majors'reading competence at higher vocational colleges. The study employs one reading comprehension test of four passages, one questionnaire and interviews with their English teachers. Following are the major findings of the study. First, schema theory can improve students'reading competence greatly. Second, the effect of linguistic schema in improving students'comprehension is the most significant, then the content schema. Last, the formal knowledge has little effect on the students'reading comprehension. In the end, the paper analyzes the reason and offer some pedagogical implications in teaching English reading at higher vocational colleges.