A Study On The Application Of Schema Theory To English Reading Teaching In Junior High School

In the21st century, English has become a global language, through which people gain more and more information. Hence, the cultivation of students’reading abilities takes a prior place in the comprehensive development of students. Besides, the current Middle School English Curriculum on English Reading requires students to reach Level Five. Therefore, the author has conducted a trial in the junior high school reading teaching under the guidance of Schema Theory with the expectations of improving students’reading abilities effectively and becoming outstanding readers.The thesis first introduces the background of this research, the research questions, the purpose of this study, and the organization of the thesis.The author reviews the researches on the application of Schema Theory in EFL teaching around the world and in China. Reading is regarded as an activity in which readers interact with the written information. And the three reading models are bottom-up model, top-down model, and interactive model. The bottom-up model refers to understand the texts by converting letters into words and words into sentences. The top-down model means that readers have to make full use of their background knowledge to interpret the texts. However, the interactive model is the synthesis of bottom-up model and top-down model. Though the application of interactive schema has some deficiencies, it has been testified as the most effective model by a large number of researches.Then, based on the Schema Theory, the author makes an experiment. This experiment tends to prove:1) having a brief introduction of schema and Schema Theory,2) There is close connection between Schema Theory and reading comprehension3) There are obvious implications of Schema Theory in English reading, especially in junior high school English reading.4) There are various teaching strategies and some meaningful class activities. A questionnaire, a pre-test paper, and a post-test paper they taken as research instruments.Two classes in Grade Seven of the No.26Middle School of Tangshan they selected as samples in this experiment. The analysis of data from the two tests shows that students in the experimental class make more progress in reading comprehension and the rate is distinguishingly higher than students in the control class. Besides, the results of the questionnaire for students and their feedbacks indicate that under the guidance of Schema Theory students began to master and apply some reading skills in their reading process and therefore had more interests in reading. In conclusion, Schema Theory can play the role of positive guidance in the English reading teaching.At the end, the thesis concludes the main idea, discusses the shortcomings of this study, and proposes further researches to improve these deficiencies.