The Application Of Schema Theory To Teaching English Reading In Senior School

Reading class plays an important part in English teaching of high school, the teaching goal of which is to help students improve their reading ability based on the overall development of English reading skills, on the knowledge about the English language, on the background information related, on its culture which determines how English is used, and something else relevant. However, the present situation is not very promising.Take the school where the author works for example, most English teachers focus on teaching linguistic knowledge only, such as grammar, vocabulary, pattern drills throughout the classroom activity, while ignore the cultivation of students ability, which, after all, gives rise to a picture where students are just expected to accumulate the bulk of words, phrases and sentences without getting the best out of the readings they've done. As for students, reading is merely for knowing words, but not for getting the message. With that in mind, the author of the paper attempts to do something to improve the reality through identifying the problem lying not only in the teachers'concept about English teaching, but also in the teaching methods. Guided with education theory, or rather schema theory, the author has undertaken an experiment for one semester with one class where schema theory is applied, and the other one where teaching is done in a traditional way so as to see whether the reading class conducted with schema theory can do a better job.Schema has three categories--- language schema, content schema and form schema. Language schema refers to the knowledge about pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar. Content schema refers to the relevant background knowledge about the topic of an article. Form schema, also called structure schema or rhetoric schemata, refers to the textual knowledge or genre knowledge. While doing the experiment, the author first helps students get ready before doing the reading text by activating the schema strategies in students from different perspectives accordingly; then, asks students to practise the strategies so as to get things done either by themselves or with some help from the teacher. As a result, students reasoning and summarizing ability is cultivated with three types of schema interacting and influencing each other, and their comprehensive reading ability is improving as expected.It turns out that the findings of the research echo the author's assumptions that schema theory really can do a good job in the enhancement of reading ability of students. But the mistaken way of teaching, which, unfortunately, still dominates in reading class of most high schools, is, at least in part, to blame for students'poor reading ability to some extent.It is a pity, however, that the time for the experiment is not long enough to make it more convincing. Yet, it is the way to success. And there is a long way ahead of us.