Research On The Application Of Schema Theory To The Teaching Of Medical English Reading

Schema defined by Bartlett (1932) as “An active organization of past reaction of pastexperiences, which must always be supposed to operate in any well-adapted organic response.”Schema theory, originated from the Gestalt psychology, has been widely applied and acceptedin ESL/EFL teaching and learning especially in reading and listening. Medical English readingis of vital importance for medical majors who will gain plenty of new knowledge of theirmajors by reading medical English passages in Grade four and five. So the author of this thesistries to apply the schema theory into the medical English reading teaching.Based on the teaching experiment, the author will explore the answers to the followingtwo questions:1) whether could the learners’ reading scores be improved after training ofreading comprehension under the guide of schema theory?2) How can we help students toimprove their medical English reading skill with the help of schema theory? The teachingresearch was being carried out from March2012to June2012. Fifty-two participants arerandomly selected from the first clinical college in Shanxi Medical University. Under the guideof schema theory, the teaching process was conducted. Scientific methods, such asquestionnaires, interview, the pre-test, the post-test, and the note taking, were being put intopractice. When the experiment completed, the data of the pre-test and the post-test will beanalyzed by the software SPSS13.0, and the results of the questionnaires and interview will beanalyzed.The findings of the research tend to show the possibilities of improvements in ESPreading proficiency in medical majors. The mean score of the pre-test is19.7629, and the postmean score is21.8269. It proves that there is a significant difference between the pre-test andthe post-test, and the mean score of the post-test is about two points higher than that of thepre-test. The results of the research prove that the ESP reading teaching research under theguide of schema theory has positive effects on the improvements of learners’ readingproficiency. The results prove that schema theory plays positive roles in medical Englishreading teaching.Due to the small sample size of participants and the limited time of the teaching process,limitations exist in this experiment.