The Application Of Schema Theory In The Teaching Of English Majors’Listeninc Comprehension

English listening comprehension has always been a difficult task for the Chinese foreign language leaarners, even to most of English majors. As an important component of the English language teaching and learning, listening comprehension lays the basis for the study of other skills of English learning as the abilities of reading, writing, and speaking. The results of the teaching of English listening deeply influence students’ language acquisition and practical communicative competence. Yet, the teaching quality is far from satisfactory in English teaching classroom. English listening has traditionally been regarded as a passive process and students are often viewed as passive information receivers. The teaching of listening is often characterized by explaining new words and introducing grammatical knowledge. This way of teaching severely depresses students’ initiative and restrains the students’interest and creativity. In nature, however, the listening comprehension should be regarded as an active process. The aim of listening comprehension is to obtain adequate comprehension between the speakers’words and real intention during the process of listening comprehension. In order to reach that goal, the usage of listening strategies, contextual hints and background information should be fully considered in listening comprehension. A good listener should understand the meaning of speaker’words with relevant background knowledge.Regarding the problems existing in the process of listening, the thesis adopts the application of schema theory in the teaching of English listening as the theme of research. According to Rumelhart (1980), the background knowledge of language listening comprehension has been formalized as schema theory. Based on the theory, it is believed that listening comprehension is an interactive process between listeners’linguistic knowledge, background knowledge and the new information. The background knowledge plays an important key role in listening comprehension. According to schema theory, in the process of listening comprehension, when the listener puts his former acquired knowledge, he can fully understand the incoming material. This former obtained information concerned to new listening material is called the schemata of new information which involves all aspects of knowledge acquired before, as the knowledge of language, society, culture or common sense. In the process listening comprehension, listeners should activate their background knowledge and use them to interpret the new text. Due to the theory and prior researches, schema theory can be used to guide teaching of English listening.The listening comprehension is to connect information between the known ones and that of incoming listening materials. Listeners can recall what is known to interpret the new incoming information. One’s listening comprehension depends largely on one’s stored prior background knowledge they can apply. The teacher should give the listeners some related background knowledge of topics from different aspects, who will make prediction and interpretation for the incoming information and catch the detailed information and main idea at the same time.This thesis aims to explore practical usage of schema theory on Chinese English Majors’listening comprehension by means of both listening test and questionnaire, so as to reveal the cognitive process of English majors’listening comprehension. The results of the experiment are analyzed in both quantitative and qualitative approaches.The results of the present study indicate that the application of Schema theory has significant impacts on Chinese English Majors’listening comprehension performance. The results show that listeners’existing schema exert great effect on listening comprehension. Therefore, schema theory is effective and feasible in the teaching practice of English listening. Schema can be activated during the process of pre-listening and while-listening activities and be accumulated in post-listening activities. The results of subsequent questionnaire further prove the fact that being familiar with the topic has a positive impact to the English Majors’listening comprehension. Schema theory has many implications for the teaching of English listening. English learners should pay much attention to their accumulation of background knowledge and enhance their English proficiency to improve listening comprehension. However, no theory can solve all the problems for all. Schema theory has its limitations, for it can not provide explicitly the explanation for all the phenomena or process related to listening comprehension. The misuse or overuse of schema will harm the listener’s listening comprehension instead of promoting.