The Application Of Schema Theory In English Reading Teaching In Senior High Schools

With the development of information society, English is becoming more and more important. It is an important way for students to learn about the outside world and acquire knowledge. Reading takes a large proportion in the NMET, and one of the most important tasks for teachers in senior high schools is to improve students’ reading ability. Therefore, improving the reading teaching ability and emphasizing the cultivation of the students’ reading ability is not only the necessity of the language learning, but also the necessity of social development. However, due to the influence of traditional teaching methods, many teachers misunderstand the task of reading teaching. As a result, their students only focus on learning vocabulary, grammatical rules and other linguistic knowledge.With reference to the Schema Theories, this thesis mainly analyzes the current English reading teaching situation and the existing obstacles to demonstrate the necessity of the application of schema-based English reading teaching method. The thesis is aimed at changing the teaching approaches, polishing the teaching modes and cultivating the awareness of the students’ reading strategies constantly to improve the reading abilities of the students. The author carried out an experimental study in Shanghai Zhongguo Senior High School which was conducted from Sep. 2015 to Nov. 2015. Three hypotheses are put forward by the author before the experiment:(1) The schema-oriented reading teaching approach is more effective than the traditional translation teaching method.(2) The schema-oriented reading teaching approach can boost students’ reading interests and improve their reading ability.(3) Students can acquire necessary reading skills and strategies under the influence of the Schema Theory.To verify the hypotheses, a comparative experiment was carried out based on the procedures step by step, including pre-questionnaire, pre-test, post-test, post-questionnaire and post-interview. Two parallel classes in Grade One were selected as the subjects in this experiment. One class was chosen as the experimental class(EC) in which schema-based reading were adopted; the other was the control class(CC) in which the traditional teaching method was used as usual. The experiment lasted for 3 months; all the data and information were collected and analyzed with the help of SPSS 16.0 software.The data of the experiment, the results of the questionnaires and interviewees’ feedbacks proved the hypotheses of the author before the experiment. The experiment indicates the feasibility of schema theory in English reading teaching, and it has great importance to the reading teaching in senior high schools. At the end of the thesis, the author points out the limitations of the experiment and puts forward some pedagogic suggestions based on the experiment.