On Application Of The Schemata Theory To SEFC Reading Teaching

The concept of "schemata" was first put forward in late 1600's but it was finally theorized in 1980's. Since then it has gradually become one of the most popular theories in the second language acquisition studies. Researchers abroad show that schemata theory has an important effect on English reading. Scholars at home have made some studies on the relationship between schemata theory and English reading teaching, which mainly focuses on the explanation of foreign theories or introducing their own experience without authentic evidence. Faced with the task to help the students from a liberal class to gain more than 32 points in reading comprehension in standard examinations within a year, the author of the present paper decided to make an attempt by means of the schemata theory to find an effective way to improve English reading in senior middle school English teaching.This thesis first reviews three models of reading and the schemata theory, then analyzes the reason why students can not understand some reading materials, and explain how to use three schemata in senior English reading teaching. Finally this thesis tests the students' reading ability. By comparing the first with the second test results, this thesis draws a conclusion about the effect of the Schemata theory on reading.For the experiment reading materials, they are made up of the new textbooks of senior I and II. According to their own characteristics and types, they are dealt with differently. At the end of grade one, the former test was given; at the end of the reading experiment, the latter given.To test the effect of linguistic schemata on reading, two reading comprehension tests were designed in which students were asked to explain a strange word and a complex sentence. In this way, we can draw a conclusion that linguistic schemata help students improve their ability of guessing words and analyzing complicated grammatical structure of long sentences.To test the effect of content schemata on reading, the other reading comprehension tests were designed in which students are asked to answer three questions about the details of an article. It has proved that with the help of content schemata, students have overcome the difficulties caused by lacking background knowledge and have a better understanding of the topic and the content.To test the effect of formal schemata on reading, still other two reading comprehension tests were designed in which students were asked to write an outline of the article with 20points the full mark. Before the experiment, students didn't have any training about formal schemata and had no idea about the structure. While after the experiment, students first judged the style of the text and then according to the characteristics of different styles.In terms of the findings mentioned above, the present paper proves four points: (1) The use of linguistic schemata enlarges students' vocabulary and improves their understanding of complex sentences. (2) The use of content schemata makes students get a more precise idea of the topic and the content of the reading materials. (3) The use of formal schemata lets students know the structure of the article more clearly. (4) The use of schemata theory in reading can increase the whole scores of English reading comprehension.At the end of the paper, the author gets a conclusion that Schemata theory plays a very important part in improving students' reading ability.