Primary Hearing Task Design Based On Schema Theory

Listening plays a crucial part in language learning and communication. However, the difficulty in listening is the biggest obstacle encountered by international students on their initial stage of learning Chinese, as remarked by such students and their teachers.Based on Schema Theory, this paper (1) introduces the essence and types of schemata, reveals the relationships among schemata, listening comprehension, and the three stages of listening tasks, so as to discuss principles of listening task design on the basis of Schema Theory; (2) points out problems concerning activity design in existing elementary-level Chinese listening textbooks and offers suggestions for improvement, through analysis of such activities in three textbooks; (3) provides new ideas of listening task design and of task-oriented teaching mode of listening based on Schema Theory via sample lecture design, teaching experimentation and retrospection.Integrating Schema Theory into the design of listening tasks, this paper aims at designing listening tasks in accordance with the students’background knowledge, existing schemata and ability of understanding on the three stages of "before, during and after listening". It is suggested that listening task design based on Schema Theory should be able to motivate the students during the whole process of the listening activity:existing schemata are activated before listening, so that the students can predict the content; the activated schemata are utilized to remove ambiguity during listening, so that the students can have an accurate understanding; the schemata are reinforced after listening, so that both the students’understanding and the teaching effect can be enhanced. Such a design complies both with principles of task-oriented teaching and with basic views of Schema Theory. The investigation of this thesis into the listening task design based on Schema Theory is of theoretical and practical value to both textbook compilation and teaching practice of Chinese listening.