The Application Of Schema Theory In The Teaching Of English Reading For Junior School Students

Schema theory is an outstanding theory in the field of second language reading research, which emphasizes the role of readers’ background knowledge in successful reading comprehension. This significant theory attracts much attention in general English teaching field, especially in high schools and colleges. In middle schools, it becomes more and more important to improve students’ reading comprehension ability. However, most students in middle schools are not interested in reading comprehension. Because they think it is a complex process to complete. As a result, their achievements are not satisfactory. Therefore, the author decided to carry out an experiment in Tanggu Beingtang School to test the hypothesis:Whether the application of Schema theory can improve reading comprehension of junior school students.The author conducted the experiment involving two classes of Grade Seven in Tanggu Beitang School from March2012to June2012. One was the experimental class, which was taught with the schema-oriented instruction model, aiming to promote students’schema activation and schema building in English reading instruction. The other with the same English proficiency was regarded as the control class, and the traditional teaching method was adopted.Both quantitative and qualitative methods are used in the study. The data are collected from the pretest, posttest, questionnaires and the post class informal interviews. The major findings of one semester’s schema-oriented instruction show that students in the experimental class improved their English reading ability more rapidly than the control class and they can also learn to use reading methods to activate and build schemata to read more actively and independently.All these demonstrate that schema-oriented instruction model is helpful in improving middle school students’ English reading comprehension. It can help students develop reading efficiency and master good reading methods. Thus, the author concludes that it is both feasible and beneficial to use schema-oriented instruction in Chinese middle school English reading classes.