On The Application Of Schema Theory To Senior High School English Reading Teaching

Reading,as a main channel of language input,is one of the important components of language skills.It is stated in English Curriculum Standards for General High School(2017 Edition,Revised in 2020)that “In English learning activities,teachers need to first activate students’ existing schemata and guide them to learn new knowledge based on their existing schemata,so as to generate new schemata and improve students’ reading comprehension”.However,in terms of current English reading teaching in senior high school,some teachers cannot activate the existing schema in students’ brains and fail to make full use of the relevant cultural background knowledge to more effectively teaching.This contributes to the lack of reading interest of students and undesirable reading teaching effects.In view of this,this study based on the Schema Theory and Constructivism Theory,tries to apply schema theory to English reading teaching in senior high school so as to enhance students’ reading interest and improve teaching effect.And the following three questions are further addressed:(1)What effects does the reading teaching based on schema theory have on senior high school students’ reading interest?(2)What effects does the reading teaching based on schema theory have on senior high school students’ understanding of cultural background knowledge?(3)What effects does the reading teaching based on schema theory have on senior high school students’ reading ability?A four-month teaching experiment was carried out by experimental method.Two parallel classes in Grade Two from Dengzhou City Senior High School were selected as the teaching experimental objects,with 54 students respectively.The experimental class applied schema theory to reading teaching,while the control class still adopted the common teaching method,which focus on the knowledge of the words,phrases and grammar.The research adopted questionnaires,reading tests,interview,and analyzed the data by SPSS 27.0.The following conclusions were drawn:(1)The English reading teaching based on schema theory can enhance students’ reading interest.(2)The English reading teaching based on schema theory can deepen students’ understanding of cultural background knowledge.(3)The English reading teaching based on schema theory can improve students’ reading ability(P=0.000<0.05),which is mainly reflected in the improvement of inference ability,word guessing ability,and cultural background comprehension ability.Through this research,the following teaching implications can be drawn:(1)Teachers should make full use of multimedia to enhance students’ interest in reading;(2)Teachers can introduce cultural background knowledge appropriately and timely to deepen students’ understanding of it;(3)Teachers need pay attention to the activation and enrichment of students’ schemata to improve their reading ability.