A Research Of The Application Of The Schema Theory To Improving The Writing Ability Of Non-English Majors With Low Proficiency

At present, there are many researches about schema theory applied to reading comprehension to improve the students'reading ability. However, researches on schema theory applied to English writing for non-English majors to enhance their writing ability are neglected, much less for low proficient students. Some related studies indicate that college students'weakest point is writing among the four basic skills such as listening, speaking, reading and writing while they acquire foreign languages. Low proficient students'writing is even worse. This research focuses on the application of the schema theory to training low proficient students English writing aiming at utilizing schema theory in English writing and finding an effective way or methods to improve the writing ability of non-English majors with low proficiency. Therefore, it is very necessary for us to apply the schema theory to college English writing and is of greatly theoretical significance and practical value to improving the teaching quality and all-round development of English skills in teaching non-English majors, especially low proficient students.In order to make this research possess reliability, feasibility and operationalization, the author conducts an empirical study and does some statistical treatment both qualitatively and quantitatively on applying the schema theory to improving the writing ability of non-English majors with low proficiency. The research questions are:(1)Does the application of schema theory to writing have positive effects on the improvement of non-English majors writing ability? (2) To what extent are low proficient students using schema method related to their writing proficiency (their linguistic accuracy, formal appropriateness and content correctness). (3) Is there any significant difference in the improvement of the writing ability of non-English majors with low proficiency comparing pre-test and post-test in this study? The study carries out for four weeks. In the process of experiment, the 60 sophomores in non-English major with low proficiency are randomly extracted as a sample. The students with low proficiency depend on the scores they get when taking the placement test of admittance to the university and are arranged in B class compared with A class in which those students get higher scores. The subjects chosen for this study are divided into two groups. One was control group which is taught by traditional teaching method. The other is experimental group which is taught by schema method. The author makes the statistical analyses through interview and questionnaire to obtain the data and the carries on pre-test and post-test in writing. The treatment of data is used SPSS. The result shows that applying the schema theory to college English writing is an effective teaching method for non-English majors, especially for the low proficiency students. The students'writing performance has improved greatly. Moreover, there is significant difference compared the pre-test with the post- test taken by the low proficient students. The participants in experimental group make a great rapid progress in writing ability. Under the guidance of schema theory, the author designs a new type of writing teaching model to improve low proficient students'ability. This research gives impetus to the popularity of the application of schema theory to foreign language study and the combination of both schema theory and practice in teaching and learning. However, there are still some limitations about this schema theory because of small sample and short time. The author will give some suggestions in the conclusion.