Study On The Application Of Schema Theory For Improving Students’ Listening Comprehension

Listening comprehension is regarded as the skill that is frequently usedand one of the most difficult basic skills to master in language capability. Incollege English listening teaching, the traditional teaching model whichemphasizes receiving information passively is still widely used nowadays.Under the influence of traditional English language learning concepts, mostEnglish listening classes are teacher-centered, and students listen to the tapeall the time, and then check the answers. In a word, the model is listening andthen answering questions. In the long run, this kind of training will notgreatly improve students’ listening competence; on the contrary, listenersmay feel frustrated mentally. Actually, listening is an active process in whichlisteners could get a good understanding of the speakers’ utterance. In orderto achieve this purpose, listeners should make use of textual clues,background knowledge and previous experience and so on; active listenerswill comprehend speakers’ meaning with specific purposes.This study is intended to explore the effect of applying schema theory toimprove students’ listening comprehension, trying to find out an effectivetraining model to help improve the listening skill of college students. Following are the research questions:1) What are the elements affecting college students’ listening comprehension?2) Whether or not can the application of schema theory in English listeningteaching effectively improve learners’ listening competence?3) How couldthe schema theory be appropriately applied in English listening teaching?Because the advocator Bartlett and Rumelhart believed that variousknowledge stored in brain is useful, which means that background knowledgewill play a crucial role in understanding new information. According to thecontact models between schema and the level of listening comprehension,schema theory is like a bridge connecting new knowledge and old learning.The listeners need to recall and connect old information in order tounderstand new input knowledge, which is also called the interaction ofschema and listening linguistic data in brain. Therefore, schema has a greatguiding significance in English listening teaching.Through the research which lasts4months on63students in controlclass and experimental class in Chengde Medical Institution, the authorproves that the application of schema theory to English listening teachingmight effectively improve learners’ listening competence. Adopting quantitative and qualitative methods, the author tries to analyze andsummarize the elements affecting college students’ English listeningcompetence. At the same time, the author adopts SPSS16.0to analyze thecollected data which shows that, after a period of training directed by schematheory, students’ listening ability have been greatly improved.Comparing with the traditional English teaching model, the applicationof schema theory to English listening teaching could improve students’listening competence to a large extent.