The Application Of Schema Theory To The Teaching And Learning Of English Reading In Senior High School

Schema Theory is a theory stating that information is stored in long-term memory in schemata (networks of connected facts and concepts), which provide a structure for making sense of new information. Schema consists of three types: linguistic schema, content schema and formal schema. The development of schema theory promotes the development and progress of the educational business in language. Nowadays, English has become the foreign language that has been learnt nationwide in many countries;thus, the importance of the teaching and learning in English reading becomes more and more obvious to the public. In the last century, the researches of schema theory and its application in second language reading had undergone a lot of changes. The positive effect of Schema Theory on English reading has also been proved by linguists and researchers. In their opinions, the"prior knowledge"in people's mind will interact with the new information that the readers had skimmed, which will help the readers a lot to comprehend the textual information efficiently. This thesis studies the application of schema theory on the teaching and learning of English reading in senior high school to prove the effectiveness and popularity of Schema Theory in the teaching of senior high school. The author carries out this study in the authentic class of Class 10, Grade one in High School Affiliated to Soochow University.The whole study employs a combination of a lot of research methods, such as class observation, questionnaire, interview and journal, etc. The author does a following study on the subject class. First of all, the author makes efforts to do classroom observation work and take notes. According to the records of the class observation, two lesson plans of the teacher which are shown in chapter four has been chosen, in order to prove that the teacher applies schema theory to English reading classes during their teaching process; two sheets of students'English scores in the entrance examination of senior high school and the mid-term exam and the scores of the reading comprehension in those two exams are shown in the data analysis part to provide evidence for the positive effects of the Schema Theory on English reading; an interview is also recorded and documented in the thesis to show the teacher's opinion about the application of schema theory on the teaching and learning of English reading in senior high school. The major findings of this thesis include: the application of Schema Theory on English reading class in senior high school has become prevalent nowadays; the application of schema theory has positive effects on English reading in senior high school; it is helpful for the teachers to improve the efficiency of the teaching of English reading by applying Schema Theory to English classes. These findings provide useful information for the future researches in this field. On the other hand, we can gain some implications for the teachers and students in English teaching and learning. For example, teachers should input more background knowledge during the lectures and students should read more books about different subjects to accumulate schema knowledge. Thus, this study is of theoretical and practical significance to some extent in English reading teaching in senior high school.