Research On The Teaching Strategies Of Higher Vocational English Reading Based On Schema Theory

Schema is the representative form and cognitive framework of knowledge.Schema theory reveals the essence of reading process and reading comprehension from a cognitive perspective.Its strong explanatory power which has been proved is of theoretical significance and practical value for ESL reading teaching.Reading teaching strategy based on schema theory is a systematic strategy which can supplement and activate existing schema and construct schema system.It concentrates more on the readers’ participation in the process of text comprehension,the establishment and activation of multilevel knowledge system,the skills and methods to achieve reading goals.It plays a great guiding role in improving teaching quality in English reading as well as students’ reading ability.The purpose of this study is to explore the effectiveness of teaching strategy based on schema theory in both English reading classroom and improving students’ reading comprehensive ability in higher vocational colleges.Furthermore,the changes of students’ reading strategies after the experiments,as well as the reasons,have been discussed in case studies,which are supposed to provide suggestions and directions for future reading teaching.The researches are based on the non-English majors in a vocational college.It is divided into three parts.First study takes three grades of non-English majors as the object,using questionnaire and analyzing the data,aiming at acknowledging a common situation of the English reading strategies used by vocational college students.According to the results,specific coping teaching strategies and directions are made.In the second study,80 accounting majors are selected as the subjects.Considering the results of the first study and the existing researches,two intervention studies on the overall reading strategies and vocabulary comprehension strategies are conducted,trying to find out the influence and effect on students’ English reading comprehension and vocabulary comprehension achievement.Through interviews and students’ assignment analysis,the third study explores the effects and deep reasons for the students’ strategy changes in reading comprehension and vocabulary comprehension after the experimental teaching.The results are as follows:1.A survey of 358 vocational college students in three grades shows that there is no significant gender difference in the use of English reading strategies among higher vocational students,but there is a significant difference between liberal arts and science students.The situation of strategy using in liberal arts students is better than that of science students.2.There is no distinctive difference in the use of reading strategies among vocational students in different grades.3.There are significant differences between the experimental class and the control class which has accepted the schematic reading strategy teaching,and the improvement of the experimental class is greater than the control class.Schematic reading teaching strategies have a significant effect on the improvement of high,middle and low-level students’ reading achievement,and the effect on low-level students is the greatest,followed by the middle-level group and high-level group;but there is no significant difference in gender.4.Schematic vocabulary teaching strategies have a significant impact on the improvement of vocabulary comprehension performance of vocational college students,especially for middle-level students,followed by high-level students and low-level students;there is no significant difference in gender.5.Case studies have explored the causes of differences in teaching effectiveness from the individual level.In the intervention of schematic teaching strategy,the middle-level and low-level students have made remarkable progress compared with the high-level student;in the vocabulary teaching strategy,the middle-level and high-level students have improved their vocabulary comprehension levels more than the low-level student.