Application Of Schema Theory To English Reading Teaching

In foreign language teaching and learning, reading is a very important factor, for it is the important approach for students to acquire foreign language knowledge and skills. For many students of English, reading is by far the most important of the four skills in the foreign language (Carrel 1989). Effective reading is also the focus in college English teaching.Schema theory emphasizes that reading comprehension is an interactive process between the reader and the text itself. A reader can use schemata to understand relationships among pieces of information and to fill in information that is not mentioned explicitly. Supporters of this view argue that a main determinant of the knowledge individuals can obtain from the act of reading is the knowledge they already possess. Guided by this view the main aim of the current study investigates the effects of background knowledge on reading comprehension of English as Foreign Language for Chinese university students.First, it investigates the possibility that there might be two distinctively different outcomes between two groups: experimental group A and control group B, sampled randomly from pilot students. It displays how the schemata are applied to reading comprehension for Group A, whereas Group B is taught ordinarily.Second, a well-constructed test, on the basis of schema theory, is held. By comparing the test results of two groups of subjects: the hypotheses which will be tested statistically in the study are: (1) experimental group A can acquire higher scores than control group B in the test after the experiment. (2) the results of experimental group A will be significantly improved after the experiment.Finally, we can, through analyzing the experiment results, conclude: schema plays a much more important role in EFL teaching, thus, the assumption can be justified. These findings have theoretical as well practical implications in the EFL and English as a Second Language (ESL) field.This dissertation is organized into 6 chapters, as well as an introduction and a conclusion.The Introduction shows the origins of the dissertation and takes a brief glance at schema.Chapter One focuses on reviewing the literature related to schema theory and presents hypothesis of the study.