A Study On The Application Of Schema Theory To English Newspaper Reading Teaching In Senior High Schools

English reading is one of the most important component of the National English Curriculum Standards for Common Senior High School(hereinafter referred to as New Curriculum) and National Matriculation Entrance Test(hereinafter referred to as NMET). In recent years, English reading comprehension has showed up-to-date information with a wide range of topics and types. In other words, it has substantial contents, multifarious articles, and all kinds of interesting stories, which are very close to real life. Besides, its language is modern and practical. To some extent, it is difficult for some students. And some of them get low scores in this part.Articles in English newspapers have the following unique features: up-to-date content, authentic language, various materials, which are same or similar to the English reading comprehension in NMET. Besides, English newspaper reading has become an important part of English reading teaching in senior high schools. Using them as materials in reading teaching are able to extend students’ scope of knowledge, cultivate students’ interest and develop students’ reading ability. Therefore, it can satisfy the relevant requirements of the New Curriculum and NMET. However, articles in English newspapers have its own distinctive linguistic and stylistic features, which students are not familiar with it. They regard the English newspaper as a great barrier. It is extremely essential to provide the students with English newspaper reading training and give them instructions on how to read English newspapers effectively.Schema Theory, as a member of reading theories, which originated from the study of psychology, is widely used in the field of EFL learning. Recently, it has great impact on reading comprehension. Schema Theory provides a strong theoretical basis for prediction and decoding in the process of reading. Schema Theory proposes that reading is an interactive process. That is to say, top-down processing and bottom-up processing in the analysis of the various levels of synchronization. According to the model of interactive, teachers should help students to enlarge multifarious language points, cultural background knowledge as well as various styles of writing, because these factors determine what they comprehend and how well they comprehend. Therefore, Schema Theory has important guiding meaning for English newspapers reading teaching.The study used the same teaching material, 21 St Century Teens(Senior Edition). Students from two parallel classes of senior one in Shenxian No.1 Senior High School were chosen as the subjects. The study wanted to find that applying Schema Theory can guide students to read English newspaper effectively. The experiment lasted for 16 weeks. On the one hand, students from the experimental class were taught by the Schema Theory-oriented approach; on the other hand, students from the control class were still taught by the traditional method. The author used three instruments, which include questionnaires, interviews, test in order to check the effectiveness of this teaching method. At last, the author compared the teaching effect of the two classes.After collecting all of the data in the experiment, the author draws a conclusion that language schema, content schema, formal schema make English newspaper reading teaching more effective. What’s more, it can arouse students’ interest in English newspaper reading and improve their English newspaper reading ability. In view of the limitation of the study, the suggestions and hope for further research are presented.