Application Of Schema Theory To Writing Teaching For Mongolian English Majors

Writing is the most difficult part of English writing for Mongolian English majors. Despite the intense studies concerning Mongolian students’English writing teaching in recent years, the conditions are not so satisfactory. How to improve Mongolian students’English writing has become one of the most heated topics of today. Therefore, based on the previous studies, this study attempts to investigate the effectiveness of schema-oriented writing teaching approach to improve Mongolian English majors’writing ability. Schemata are the means by which knowledge is represented and stored in human brain. And it is a large information structure centering a common title or theme. It ranges more widely than proposition network. The typical schematic structure is hierarchical with subsystem of information in a large, wider concept. Schema theory is a previously acquired knowledge structures. Which means the theory is composed of past experience. Kant, Bartlett and Rumelhart proposed different concepts and findings about schema at different time.Since the1970s, studies and research have been widely done on how to apply Schema theory to EFL teaching both abroad and home. The present thesis makes an empirical study on the application of schema theory in writing teaching for Mongolian English majors, and raises three research questions. The three questions are:(1) whether schema theory can be applied in English writing teaching for Mongolian English majors?(2) Among these three schema (linguistic, format, content schema), which one improves significantly?(3)Are there any possible methods to help students accumulate, construct and activate their schemata? During the study, both qualitative and quantitative methods are adopted. A questionnaire which collects information about the current situation of English writing learning and teaching for Mongolian English majors was applied. In order to achieve better and more significant effects, the author arranges schema-oriented writing teaching approach in the experiment. Then the data was analyzed through SPSS, including means comparison and independent-samples t-test. Through analyzing the data obtained from the experiment and summarizing the interview result, the author obtains some significant findings:(1) Schema theory can be applied in English writing teaching for Mongolian English majors.(2) Through schema-oriented writing teaching approach, students’ format schema has improved significantly. The effect of schema theory on the development of content and vocabulary is relatively less significant.To improve the vocabulary use, students have to be more competent in English language manipulating.(3) Teaching methods such as mapping, reading, contrasting between Mongolian and English are proved to be more effective in accumulating, constructing and activating students’schemata.