A Study Of Application On Schema Theory To English Reading Teaching In Higher Vocational Colleges

For many learners,reading is the most important of the four language skills,especially in the English as a second language or foreign language learningCarrell.P.L(1988).Reading is always one of the most crucial parts among listening,speaking,reading and writing.English reading class plays an important role in foreign language teaching and learning.With the rapid development of higher vocational education in our country,remarkable improvement has taken place in higher vocational English education reform,but there are still some problems need to be solved because most teachers still use traditional teaching methods.How to teach English reading effectively determines the whole quality of English education.Schema is the knowledge patterns stored in people's minds.It was first put forward by Bartlett in his book Remembering and was gradually applied to English teaching.Based on the theory,reading comprehension is not just a process of analyzing the words and structures,is also a process in which the reader uses his original background knowledge.A reader can use schemata to understand relationships among pieces of information and to fill in the information that is not mentioned explicitly.English reading teaching based on schema theory is to inspire student to think actively and to awaken the student's previous knowledge in the hope that the training can improve both teaching and learning.The main content of the study is divided into three parts:The first part briefly reviews the history of the schema theory,the definition of schema,introduces three types of schema: linguistic schema,content schema and rhetorical schema.Analyze the domestic and foreign literature of schema theory applied to reading teaching and the feasibility of applying schema theory to reading teaching.The second part is the application part.It discussed the main principles for applying schema theory to English reading teaching.Introduce the procedure of schema-based reading teaching: activate the schema,build schema and consolidate schema.And analyze the strategies and methods on how to carry out a better English reading class based on schema theory in higher vocational colleges.The third part is the empirical research.On the one hand,using the reading tests to see whether schema teaching method is better than the traditional teaching method.On the other hand,using questionnaire survey to find whether the schema reading teaching method can arouse students' interest,help them to confidence and improve other non-intellectual factors.The author chooses two classes of Jiangxi University of Science and Technology as the test object,and carries on the teaching experiment for16 weeks,4 lessons per week.The experimental class implements the reading teaching based on the schema theory,while the control class implements the traditional reading teaching based on the grammar translation.The students in the two classes participate in the pre-test and post-test.After comparing and analyzing the results of pre-test and post-test,it is found that the post-test scores of the experimental class are obviously higher than the control class.According to the questionnaire survey of the students' reading satisfaction,the data shows that the students in the experimental class are 47% higher in attitude and satisfaction to the reading class than the control class.In conclusion,this study confirms that schema theory is feasible and effective in the teaching of English reading in higher vocational colleges.Schema reading teaching can not only improve students 'reading comprehension,but also arouse students' interest in study and keep learning.Of course,this study is only located in the reading class,follow-up study can be from the writing,translation,lexicon and other courses,in order to ultimately improve the overall quality of English learners,and ultimately achieve the goal of improving student learning.