The Application Of Schemata Activation To English Listening Teaching In Vocational Colleges

Listening comprehension, as one of the four language skills, plays an important role in communication. According to schema theory, the process of comprehending text is an interactive and positive process between the listeners' background knowledge and the text's content. In this process, the listeners' background knowledge (schema) plays an important role. Devine pointed out that listeners often fail to comprehend a text correctly because of lacking appropriate schemata or the wrong activated schemata (cite Luo Rong, 2001: 92). Therefore, the sticking point of comprehension is to "activate appropriate schemata" to construct a correct link with a text. Many researchers have proven that activating schemata plays an important and positive role in listening comprehension (see Liu Shaolong, 1996;Wang Minhua, 2001;Cui Yan, 2004;Huang Wenjie, 2001). On the basis of the previous researches, the thesis probed into the effective methods of schemata activation in vocational colleges in order to improve listening comprehension and listening teaching effect.In this thesis, the main body falls into four chapters:Chapter One gives a brief literature review of schemata activation. The author elaborates on what the researchers discovered, such as the definition of schemata activation, classification of schemata and activation mode.Chapter Two illustrates the importance of activating schemata to listening teaching. First, activating schemata promotes the use of listening strategy. Secondly, activating schemata enlarges memory capability. Thirdly, activating schemata improves listening achievements. Finally, activating schemata can reduce listeners' anxiety and foster students' study interest, and make the classroom atmosphere active and loose.Chapter Three is about the study on the characteristics of schema activation in vocational colleges. It concerns the following three aspects: 1) the amount of schemata activation 2) the types of schemata activated in class 3) the method of activating schemata. The subjects involved are four teachers from Hunan Metallurgical Professional and Technical College.The teachers' teaching processes were recorded for analysis. Also involved in this investigation are 212 freshmen (in the second semester) from the same vocational college. They were asked to respond to the questionnaire (Appendix I) on English listening class. The questionnaire was administered to lend some supports to the result of the analysis mentioned above. The qualitative and quantitative analyses of the results show that schema activation in vocational colleges has the following characteristics:Firstly, the amount of activating schemata is few, but the amount varies with the teacher's belief and the experience of training.Secondly, the linguistic schemata account for the majority of the schemata that the teachers activated. Teachers in vocational colleges seldom activate content schemata and formal schemata.Thirdly, the types of activating schemata do not vary with different materials in listening teaching in vocational colleges.Fourthly, the method of activating schemata is not stimulating. Most teachers in vocational colleges activate schemata in narration way. A few of them activate schemata in questioning way.Chapter Four introduces the application of activating schemata to listening teaching. Based on the findings of the first investigation and schema theory, some pedagogical suggestions for schema activation are put forward as following: 1) Listeners should be active;2) Different listening materials demand different schemata;3) Conscious listening strategies should be developed.Different schemata activation methods should be utilized according to the length of listening materials and the familiarity with the topic in the application of schemata activation. In short or familiar topic listening materials, linguistic schemata should be activated. In long or unfamiliar topic listening materials, teachers should activate students' content and formal schemata. Finally, the validity of these methods is verified.