A Schema-theory-based Analytic Study On The Design Of The Reading Parts In Senior English Textbooks

As an important medium to convey knowledge,textbook is an indispensable component in both learning and teaching activities.With the development and deepening of the New Curriculum Reform,various textbooks are available for students and teachers to choose.English textbook is an important medium for students to learn language knowledge and develop their language skills.In high school English classrooms,improving students' reading ability is the core content of English teaching.Proper reading texts and well-designed reading parts are essential conditions.Therefore,the compilation of English textbook should focus on the design of reading texts and reading activities.Schema theory has been widely applied in many aspects of English language teaching,but it has been less applied in the evaluation of English textbooks.The author chooses two sets of English textbooks,New Senior English for China,published by People's Education Press(NSEC)and New Standard English,published by Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press(NSE),which are widely used in Shandong province.This study analyzes the design of reading parts in these two sets of textbooks based on schema theory.At first,this study introduces the concept of schema theory,relevant research and the relationship between reading process and schema theory.Then the theoretical framework is summarized and three research questions are presented.1)Are the pre-reading activities in NSEC and NSE designed to help activate students' relevant schemata before reading? If yes,in what way? 2)Does the selecting of reading texts in NSEC and NSE conform to schema theory and help to enrich students' schemata? 3)Are the post-reading exercises in NSEC and NSE designed to develop students' reading skills and strengthen their schemata?The reading parts including pre-reading activities,reading texts and post-reading exercises are analyzed by means of questionnaire and Readability Analyzer 1.0.By analyzing,this study arrives at the conclusion that the pre-reading activities in the two sets of textbooks can activate students' relevant schemata.The type of pre-reading activities in NSEC is relatively single and concentrates on discussion.Students'content schemata are activated by discussing the related topics.Various types of pre-reading activities are in NSE.Specifically,the pre-reading activities are vocabulary exercises and other activities with purpose of activating students' background knowledge.As for the selecting of reading text,the abundant topics in NSEC can arouse students' interest in reading and enrich students' content schemata and conform to schema theory.The linguistic difficulty of reading texts in NSE is lower than students' actual level.In NSE,the selecting of reading text can enrich students' schemata and conform to schema theory.In the aspect of post-reading exercises,the number of exercises in NSEC is proper and the exercises are related to the comprehension which is beneficial to the enhancement of students' reading ability and the strengthening of their content schemata.The post-reading exercises in NSE are various,most of which are about the language knowledge and content comprehension.To a certain degree,students' linguistic and content schemata are strengthened.On the basis of the above research,the author puts forward some suggestions on the design of the reading parts in senior English textbooks.In addition,some limitations of this study are pointed out and suggestions are provided for future study.The theoretical significance of this study is to provide a new sight of textbook evaluation and enrich the method of textbook evaluation.The practical significance of the study is to provide reference for the administrative department and offer some suggestions to the textbook compilation department.In addition,it can help teachers to deepen the understanding of the teaching materials and deal with the teaching material flexibly so as to help students to study better.