An Experimental Study Of Application Of Schema Theory To English Writing Of Senior High School

English writing is an important teaching content in National English Curriculum Standards for Common Senior High School. However, the current situation of English writing in senior high schools is not satisfying. Therefore, this experimental research is conducted to explore an effective teaching method to improve students’ English writing, that is, applying schema theory into English writing teaching in senior high schools.With the purpose, the author conducts a four-month experimental study on applying the schema theory to improving the writing ability of senior high school students. The research questions are: 1. What problems do senior high students have in the process of writing compositions? And is it effective to apply schema-based writing instruction to solving the problems above? 2. How will the students’ existing schemata be activated and the new schemata constructed and consolidated? 3. What effects can be made on the students’ writing under the guidance of the schema theory?The experiment was carried out in Middle School Attached to Hebei Normal University with 80 senior three students from two classes as the experimental subjects. During the experiment, students in controlled class had their writing trained in the traditional way while in experimental class the subjects were instructed to write compositions by activating existing schemata, constructing new schemata and consolidating schemata. In order to test the effectiveness of the experiment, data were collected from questionnaires, tests and interviews and then an analysis of those data was carried out. The gathered data was processed by SPSS 20.Research findings include: firstly, the common problems in students’ compositions consist of improper diction,grammatical mistakes,shallow ideas and illogical organization, which mainly cover three aspects: linguistic, content and formal schema knowledge deficiency. In addition, the schema-based writing instruction can, to great extent, solve the problems existing in English writing of senior high students. Secondly, students have acquired effective writing skills. Doing pre-writing activities helps students activate existing schemata in their minds. And then students learn to construct new schemata through supplementing reading materials and following model essays. After that, those related schemata are consolidated to finish a complete composition. Finally, the comparison and analysis of the data from pretest and post-test show that the students’ writing proficiency of experimental class has improved greatly, which increases students’ interest and confidence in English writing. So the schema-based instruction is an effective teaching method to enhance the writing proficiency.