Application Of Schema-Theory-Based Reading Activities To Teaching Senior High School English Reading

Reading is regarded as one of the major goals in EFL teaching and learning. It is also an essential requirement set in Senior High School English Curriculum Standard (2003). English reading is a crucial channel for the students in senior high schools to acquire knowledge, accumulate vocabulary, familiarize themselves with sentence patterns and develop their writing skill as well. Training students to develop strong reading ability should be given priority in senior high school English teaching target.According to Carrell, reading is by far the most important of the four skills in the foreign language learning (Carrel, 1988:1). However, as we all know, some students, though having learned English for years, often have some difficulty in comprehending a passage. Such inadequacy may be largely due to the fact that they have kept some bad reading habits, or have difficulties in grammar, or find it difficult to understand authors'intention after word-decoding. This motives me to adopt better approaches in designing reading activities during reading instruction.Schema theory, which originated in the field of psychology in the study of mental organization for storing and retrieving the existing knowledge while dealing with the new information, has been applied in EFL learning and has a great effect on reading comprehension. Therefore, for EFL reading, schema theory has become necessary for its capability of balancing interaction between the reader and the writer in a reading process.According to schema theory, readers'problems are related to the absence of a certain schema, as well as non-activation of schema. Therefore, the writer of this thesis takes advantage of questionnaires, comprehension tests with open questions, retrospections and interviews among senior high school students. And the topic of this thesis is about the relationship between schemata and EFL reading comprehension and what kinds of activities are most available in reading instruction. Based on schema theory, the author sets up a hypothesis that schema-theory- based reading activities will have good effects on students'reading comprehension. After this hypothesis is proved positive, what kind of activities a teacher can use in teaching reading.Results showed that both English teachers and students lacked the use of schema-theory-based reading activities in their reading classes. Meanwhile, the hypothesis of this study had been tested to be correct. That is, schema-theory-based reading activities had good effects on students'reading comprehension. Making predictions based on the title was the most available pre-reading activity in students'reading comprehension. Working in pairs or groups and answering questions can help students to activate and enrich their existing background knowledge. During the course of reading, students'vocabulary and grammar can be reinforced. Retelling or rewriting the text is most available during the stage of post-reading.This paper is divided into 5 chapters with an introduction to the current teaching environment. Chapter One of this paper presents a brief historical review over the past research work done on reading and the development of the theory. Chapter Two reviews theories on reading comprehension. Definition, historical survey and classification are given to schema theory, which is applied in reading activities in improving reading comprehension. After that are the factors affecting reading comprehension process. Chapter Three describes an experimental study on the effect of schema- theory-based reading activities on reading comprehension. Chapter Four is a detailed description of data collected from the study and findings. A careful analysis of score comparisons in two school-wide midterm and final exams reveals significant difference between the Experimental Group and Control Group. This proves that with the help of the schema-theory-based activities, students'reading comprehension can be facilitated. Two questionnaires before and after the study show that the students in the Experimental Group become more and more confident and interested in English reading, develop their consciousness of using reading strategies, and form a good habit of reading. Records from the students'interviews and the author's observation also indicate that this new approach is available. Chapter five is about the application of the findings into reading teaching in class and suggestions on the application of the reading activities to develop the students'reading skills and strategies. In the end, a conclusion drawn from the previous chapters of the study is made, presenting research implications and suggestions for further study. It is also implied that teachers should cultivate their students'strong awareness of using schema-theory-based reading activities. The author points out the limitations of this study and makes suggestions for future study in the last part of this thesis. How to activate the schemata existed in students'mind as well as how to enrich their schema is a problem that is worth considering.Based on the findings, it is suggested that teachers should pay much attention to reading activities in their reading classes to build up students'new background knowledge as well as enrich their language knowledge. It is also implied that teachers should cultivate their students'strong awareness of using schema-theory-based reading activities in their everyday English study.