An Empirical Study Of Schema Theory In English Reading Instruction In Senior High School

Reading is the main channel for people to obtain information, and has always been one of the important parts in English teaching in China. However, under the influence of exam-oriented education and grammar translation method, traditional teaching method is often used in foreign language reading teaching. The English teachers lay emphasis on the grammar and translation, which causes students to ignore the overall comprehension of discourse and the learning of schemata related to the reading text.The paper applies the schema theory to instruct English reading in senior high school,helping to improve learners’ reading ability.Grade two students in senior high school are studied with questionnaire,experiment and tests. The paper discusses two questions:(1) Does the application of the schema theory in English reading instruction could stimulate the senior high students’ interest in English reading?(2) Does the application of the schema theory could improve the senior high students’ English ability? Firstly, in order to know the research subjects’ current status of English reading, the questionnaire is carried out in the control class and the experimental class before the experiment. Secondly, the pre-test is implemented in two classes, which tests the students’ English reading ability and whether they can be used as the research subjects. Thirdly, the teaching experiment based on the schema theory has been carried on in the experimental class for a term.Lastly, the post test is carried out in two classes. Through analyzing the data from the pre-test and post test, the results show that the application of schema theory could improve learners’ reading ability.The research results conclude as following: firstly, the questionnaire results between pre-experiment and post-experiment show that schema theory is beneficial to stimulate students’ interest in English reading; secondly, the application of schema theory could improve learners’ English reading ability through analyzing those two test results. Therefore, the English teachers in senior high school should stimulate the students’ acquired schemata, develop students’ reading interest and guide them to enrich new schemata in the process of English reading instruction.