Schema Theory And Its Application In EFL Reading

Reading comprehension has always been receiving much attention in teaching and learning English and other foreign languages. Teachers have taken a lot of efforts to develop effective teaching methods and strategies, and have accomplished a lot of achievements. However, we can still find that many reading teachers mainly attributed the students'poor reading comprehension to linguistic deficiencies. In class, they devote much time and energy to the teaching of vocabulary and grammar. However, the result was often, although not always, disappointing.In fact, reading is a meaning-making process involving an interaction between the reader and the text. Readers use their mental activities in order to construct meaning from the text. They don't read word for word, but rather use their background knowledge, and various strategies while reading.Therefore, it is of great importance for the teachers of reading to advance their understanding of reading comprehension by realizing the mental process or reading comprehension and how prior knowledge can enhance a reader's interaction with the text, and to find some strategies for successful teaching of EFL reading. This paper will examine the process of reading comprehension and the role of schema in reading comprehension, and three points will be mentioned : 1. psychological process of reading comprehension; 2. schema theory and reading comprehension; 3.strategies for the teaching of EFL reading comprehension.