The Application Of Schema Theory To Teaching English Reading In Junior High Schools

Reading is one of the four basic skills in foreign language learning and it is also an important way to acquire knowledge. Nowadays, English has become an international language which plays an significant role in such international fields as politics, economics and education. Thus, English reading is essential to English learners, either from learning purpose or from the process of learning English.A variety of researches on English reading teaching and reading models have been conducted at home and abroad. And many studies show that schema theory is proving to be an effective approach to ESL reading researches. The reading model based on schema theory proposed by Bartlett has so deep effects on reading researches that it has become a leading reading model. A schema refers to the knowledge structure stored in brain. The previously acquired knowledge is called the reader’s background knowledge. Schema theory has shown the importance of background knowledge. According to schema theory, comprehending a text is an interactive process between the reader’s prior schemata and the text. Successful comprehension requires the ability to relate the textual materials to one’s own knowledge. Thus, the key point is to help the students build new schemata and activate their existing schemata.Most reading researches on schema theory in China are college or university bound, few focus on the reading ability of the students in junior high schools. What makes most of the teachers in junior high schools confused is how to assist the students to improve their reading ability effectively. Owing to this, this thesis attempts to apply schema theory into English reading teaching to testify whether it can improve effectively the students’reading ability and to what extent it helps them enhance their reading ability. The experiment, lasting eighteen weeks, is carried out in Shiqiao Middle School. Two classes of Grade Three were selected randomly. One is the experiment class (Class One), adopting schema-oriented reading teaching method; the other is the control class (Class Two), still using the traditional teaching method. Data collection involves both scores of pre-test and post-test, and questionnaire surveys, and the data is analyzed by SPSS. The focus of data analysis is on the differences between the experiment class and the control class before and after this experiment. and the differences of the scores of these two classes in pre-test and post-test. Before the experiment, the questionnaire is carried out in order to find out more information about the students’attitudes on English reading learning so as to ensure that the application of schema-oriented reading teaching method could promote the students’ reading ability effectively. The analysis of the data demonstrates that the experiment class has significant improvement. The results of this experiment reveal that schema-oriented teaching method can stimulate the students’interest in learning English and the activities designed can help students build new schemata and activate their prior schemata so as to improve their reading ability.This thesis, at first, introduces the knowledge of schema theory and reading models, then combines the study on schema theory with an empirical research, testifying the directive role of schema theory in teaching reading in junior high schools. The final part lists the suggestions for the teachers, which will shed light on English reading teaching in junior high schools.