A Study On Effective Activation Of Schema In College English Listening Teaching

In English listening teaching in our country, traditional teaching methods have been used for many years for students to understand the entire contents of the article, including the interpretation of words and phrases, grammatical structure, translation of the whole passage, repeatedly playing the tape, and so on. Listening comprehension has always been considered a passive process, but actually hearing is an active process. More and more people have realized the importance of listening ability in English language learning and communication. English listening ability is an important skill, which can be improved with the guidance of scientific theories.Schema theory originated in the field of psychology and after that it was used in the field of language teaching. Many researchers found schema theory had great influence on reading comprehension teaching. During years of teaching the author has found schema theory can also play an active role in English listening teaching. According to schema theory, the listening comprehension is a complex psychological process in which the background knowledge of the listener interacts with the input acoustic signal. The process involves three types of schemata: linguistic schema, content and formal schema, and two information processing modes: top-down and bottom-up information processing.The application of schema theory in teaching listening mainly refers to the accumulation and activation of schemata. The more schemata a listener stores, the more understanding he will achieve. Therefore, in the teaching activities, teachers should not only help students to establish the relevant schema, but also try to activate these schemata in listening comprehension, which can facilitate the listener's prediction of the content and make new information easier to understand. After a period of practice, the purpose of improving listening ability can be achieved.This is an empirical study based on schema theory. It is about how schema theory is applied to English listening teaching and how we can help the students activate the schemata stored in their brain. In order to prove the effectiveness of schema theory in listening teaching, the author put forward four research questions which are tested and verified in the paper:1. What are the regularities of college students'schemata?2. What are the effective ways to activate the college students'schemata?3. What are the effects of applying schema theory on students in English listening teaching?4. What are the students'reactions to the listening teaching approach of activating The author conducts an experimental study on 100 non-English major sophomores for three months in order to prove that the activation of schemata has a positive role in the improvement of listening competence. By analyzing the data about the experimental group and the control group, the author draws the conclusion that the activation of schema theory can play a significant role in English listening teaching.This thesis includes five chapters: Chapter One is about the necessity and significance of this study; Chapter Two introduces the origination and definition of schema theory with a detailed description of related theories; Chapter Three presents experimental subjects, materials, procedures, methods and data collection; Chapter Four uses software to analyze the experimental results and discusses the data; Chapter Five is the conclusion part.