A Study Of The Application Of Cultural Introduction To Senior High School English Reading Teaching Based On The Schema Theory

Against the background of exam-oriented education,the traditional grammar-translation method is mainly adopted in the English reading teaching of high school in China.After massive teaching practice,scholars have found that it is not conducive to the improvement of students' English language ability and it cannot meet the requirements of the new curriculum standard.In this process,teachers have ignored the step of cultural introduction.Cultural introduction can make students understand the Anglo-American cultural knowledge better.It not only can expand their scope of knowledge,but also benefit the process of reading comprehension.If teachers often make students to learn the cultural background knowledge,the knowledge will be gradually accumulated in students' mind and form abundant schemata.Students use schemata to understand or absorb new content better.In this teaching process,the author focused on the initiative of students in their learning process and tried to construct a kind of activity classroom.It is our goal to make students learn from activities and study more actively or happily.In the teaching experiment process,the author adopted various reading teaching methods and changed the traditional oppressive atmosphere in the reading class.The author focused on the participation of students in the teaching activities and carried out bold as well as effective innovation.With a variety of teaching and learning methods to stimulate their interest,students can make progress on English reading.This study focuses on the following three issues:(1)Compared with the traditional grammar-translation method,is cultural introduction based on schema theory more effective to enhance students' reading comprehension?(2)In the activity classroom,can cultural introduction based on schema theory improve students'reading achievements and reading level?(3)In the activity classroom,does cultural introduction based on schema theory have an effect on arousing students' interest in English reading?This experiment was carried out in Grade One of Liaoning Experimental Senior High School Liaobin Branch in Panjin city,Liaoning province.In this study,90 students in two parallel classes were selected as the research object for the teaching experiment which was conducted for one semester.There are both 45 students in the experimental class and the control class.In the teaching process,the author carried out cultural introduction in the experimental class while carried on the traditional method in the control class.In addition,these two classes used unified English teaching materials.The research methods include tests,questionnaires and interviews.The conclusions of this study are as follows:(1)In the teaching process of English reading,cultural introduction can increase the cultural schema in students' minds,broaden their scope of cultural background knowledge and it plays an important role in enhancing their ability of reading comprehension.It can stimulate students' learning motivation and raise their reading speed.It can also enhance their understanding of reading materials and improve their reading ability.(2)In the activity classroom,cultural introduction based on schema theory can help students grasp the content of reading materials and increase their reading achievements as well as reading level.(3)Cultural introduction based on schema theory can input abundant Western culture effectively to students and improve their familiarity with various reading subjects so as to increase their interest in English reading.The author hopes this study will help English teachers in high school.