A Research On The English Reading Instruction In High School Under The Guidance Of Schema Theory

Reading plays a dominant role among the four skills in the learning of a foreignlanguage and how to improve students’ English reading ability is an important goal ofEnglish teaching. But the grammar-oriented and teacher-centered reading class oftenputs too much emphasis on vocabulary, grammar, sentence structure orpronunciation. The reading comprehension itself is often overlooked. This kind ofreading class makes high school students passive in the classroom and unable to readeffectively and in turn hinders the development of their reading comprehensionability. This research holds that the effective application of schema theory to Englishreading instruction is an important way to solve the current problem. Researchersare now paying more and more attention to the application of schema theory toEnglish reading instruction. But up to now, researchers have seldom conductedclassroom observations to observe the current teaching practice. Besides, thesuggestions of most researches have remained at a theoretical level.On the basis of literature, this research first defines the core concepts throughinduction and explores theoretical bases for improving English reading instruction.Secondly, this research investigates and analyzes the current English reading situationof high school students and the reasons behind the current situation by combiningqualitative method with quantitative method. Finally, on the basis of the theoreticaland empirical researches, this research expounds the concrete suggestions on highschool English reading instruction and provides practical examples related with thetextbooks.The findings of the empirical research mainly reveal students’ attitudes towardEnglish reading, their motivations for English reading, their reading habits, theirknowledge of reading techniques and their main difficulties in English reading andthe reasons behind the phenomena.On the basis of the findings and the theories, this research puts forward thefollowing practical suggestions for improving reading instruction in high school:(1)teachers should guide students to read a text as a whole to train students to use the effective way of reading and some reading techniques;(2) teachers should helpstudents effectively enlarge vocabulary and cultivate vocabulary skills as well toimprove students’ ability to use the vocabulary;(3) teachers should enhancestudents’ content schemata by using some classroom activities to help studentsbetter understand the content of the text and arouse students’ interest in Englishreading;(4) teachers should introduce different genres to familiarize students withdifferent kinds of rhetorical structures to facilitate reading comprehension; and (5)teachers should encourage students to do extensive reading after class to increasetheir reading speed and help them form a virtuous circle of English reading.