| Reading plays an important part in language learning.Great efforts have been made to improve reading ability under the guidance of traditional grammar-translation instruction for the Chinese students in their English reading class for a long time.However,the results are far from satisfactory.In order to solve the problem,the author searched the literature for relevant theories and found great interest in schema theory. Based on schema theory,the comprehending of a text is an interactive process between the reader's background knowledge and the text.Efficient comprehension requires the ability to relate the textual material to one's own knowledge.Inspired by schema theory,the author tried to experiment with it in Grade Seven English reading instruction in Shangzhuang Middle School.The purpose of the action research is to study the impact of the schema-oriented reading instruction in reading comprehension.It aims to answer the following research questions:1)Can schema-oriented teaching methods increase students' interest in reading? 2)Can schema-oriented teaching methods make students more active in reading class? 3)Can schema-oriented teaching methods improve students' general ability in reading comprehension?The action research lasted for eighteen weeks with two Junior One classes participating.Each consisted of 32 students,respectively as the experimental group and the control group for their same level of English proficiency.While in the experimental group,schema-oriented teaching method instruction was adopted,in the control class, the prevalent grammar-translation teaching method instruction was used as before.The data collection involved a pre-test,a post-test,two questionnaire surveys,two informal interviews,the students log and the teacher log.The data were analyzed by means of SPSS 15.0.The results of the action research indicated that students in the experimental class had greater improvement in their reading ability than those in the control class,as their reading skills and awareness of schema building developed very quickly. This proved that the schema-oriented teaching approach had a real effect on students' reading proficiency.Although this thesis is just a tentative attempt,the author hopes that it will provide a practical model for teachers in EFL reading teaching instruction. |
