The Application Of Schema Theory In College Non-English Majors’ Listening Teaching

The investigation results show that vocabularies, basic linguistic knowledge andbackground knowledge would affect listeners’ comprehension. According to the schema theory,the above three types of knowledge are classified into linguistic schema and content schema.Thus it can be said that the deficiency of schemata knowledge could influence the listeningeffect. However, in present English listening class, teachers hardly apply schema theory tolistening teaching, not to mention schemata usage skills. In this thesis, the author designs a newteaching model via schema theory, with which teaching students what is the schema and howto use it in listening process.According to schema theory, people usually associate their existing knowledge and lifeexperience with the new information so as to construct a complete schema network in mind, bywhich people understand the new information more easily. In other words, comprehension ofinformation is, to some degree, determined by the usage of prior knowledge. In light of schematheory, listening process is the interaction between schema knowledge and phonics signals inone’s mind. Thus the reasonable usage of existing schema is very important to help people tomake good comprehension.In order to transfer the schemata knowledge and skills of using schemata, the authoradopts flexible methods in terms of different features of various schemata. In the stage ofpre-listening, the teacher designs some acitvities or uses the multi-media equipment, aiming toactivate and supplement their existing schema knowledge; in the stage of while-listening,teachers can teach students some schema usage skills in order to inspire and enlighten studentsto use those strategies consciously in listening process; and in the post-listening process,making up diolog or doing paraphrase according to what they have learnt would be beneficialfor listeners to construct and describe the new schema. In doing so, the impression of newknowledge received in mind could be deepened furtherly. Moreover, a systematic andwell-organized schema network can be built up.In conclusion, through designing a new teaching listening model via schema theory, theauthor wants to achieve the following two goals: first one is to prove the function of schematheory in improving non-English majors’ listening proficiency by means of empirical study; second one is to teach students how to use the related schema knowledge and strengthen theircounsciousness of using schema knowledge positively in listening process.