An Empirical Study Of Training Seniors In English Reading Strategies Based On Schema Theory

Reading is an effective way of language input. It is widely acknowledged that reading plays an important role in linguistic competence. As the reading sections in the college entrance examinations are very demanding, the teaching of reading is always a significant link in English teaching at high school in China. However, despite much effort by both teachers and students, high school seniors still remain rather poor in reading comprehension. Therefore, how to enhance students’reading skill always puzzles English teachers. The theory of reading, schema theory, and reading strategies proposed by domestic and foreign scholars provide a new perspective and new methods for the teaching of English reading.First, this thesis briefly surveys the status quo of teaching English reading to high school seniors, before it states the research questions, research methods, research purpose, and the structure of the thesis. Next, the thesis overviews relevant literature, including a short summary of major researches on the theory of reading, schema theory, and reading strategies. Then, referring to schema theory and adopting such common research methods as the deductive&inductive approaches and qualitative&quantitative analysis, the author conducts a comprehensive and thorough empirical study, which lasts over twelve weeks. The thesis describes in detail all the procedures or steps of this study: the pre-interview and the post-interview, the pre-questionnaire and the post-questionnaire, the pre-test and the post-test, the teaching experiment, and analysis of the results of each of the procedures, focusing upon the last two steps. The data of the experiment obtained through qualitative and quantitative analysis tell us that the students of the experimental class have made obvious progress in their reading comprehension. Finally, the thesis summarizes the findings and enlightenments, as well as limitations and further research to be done.This study reveals that through this kind of training high school seniors can strengthen their awareness of applying reading strategies, improve their skill at reading comprehension, and enhance their confidence in learning English well.