论文总字数：33468字

摘 要

在英语教学中，阅读教学是一个必不可少的环节，也是学习者获取信息的主要途径。目前阅读理解在中学考试中所占的比重越来越大。尽管一些老师课堂上反复介绍各种阅读技能来指导他们提高阅读能力，但长期以来，它仍然是学生英语学习的瓶颈。近年来语言学家和认知心理学家提出图式理论并分析了图式对阅读的促进作用。本文首先综述了图式理论与英语阅读教学的关系及其研究的现状。其次，阐明了图式理论的定义、种类和功能。接着，论述了在以图式为导向的英语阅读课堂中图式理论的具体应用，同时对中学英语阅读教学提出了一些启示。

关键词：图示理论；阅读理解；英语阅读教学

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 2

2.1 Relationship between schema theory and reading 2

2.2 Previous researches on schema theory in reading teaching abroad and at home 3

3. Schema Theory 5

3.1 The definition of schema theory 5

3.2 Types of schema theory 6

3.3 The functions of schema theory 7

4. Applications of Schema Theory in English Reading Teaching 8

4.1 Teaching method in schema-oriented English reading class 9

4.2 Application of the teaching method 9

5. Implications of Schema Theory in Reading Teaching 12

6. Conclusion 12

Works Cited 14

1. Introduction

Reading is one of the principal ways of getting foreign language input, and plays a more important role in foreign language learning. As Carrell (1987) pointed out, “for many students reading is by far the most important of the four skills in a second language, particularly in English as a second or foreign language.”

During the past decades, the scholars at home and aboard had been doing fruitful researches on reading theory. It has proved that the application of the schema theory is quite successful in improving learners’ reading comprehension. Schema theory was proposed by Bartlett in 1932, which focused on the importance of background knowledge and schemata for text comprehension. According to schema theory, the students’ various degrees of non-comprehension in reading are due to either their not effectively using their existing possessed schema or due to the fact that they do not possess and build the appropriate schema in their minds.

In China, both teachers and students in middle schools realize that English reading is so important that they spend much time and energy on it. Fostering students’ reading ability is teachers’ main work. However, the current situation of reading teaching existing in Chinese middle schools is not optimistic. The traditional model based on Grammar-translation approach is still widely applied in the EFL classroom, which is characterized by grammar teaching and teacher-centered instruction. Under this model, the teacher is the center of the class, and usually spends a large amount of time explaining the text word by word, sentence by sentence. As a result, the students hardly have the chance to actively participate in the reading process and they only understand the meaning of the single sentences instead of grasping the integrity of the text.

On the purpose of improving students’ reading abilities of English, this thesis mainly discusses how to apply schema theory in English reading instruction. The thesis first gives a brief introduction to the necessity of learning English reading and the present situation existing in middle schools’ reading teaching. Next, it presents a literature review on the relationship between schema theory and reading and the previous researches on schema theory. Then it focuses on the definition, types and functions of schema theory. After expounding on the theoretic support--schema theory, the application of schema theory in English reading teaching is elaborated. At the end of the thesis, it provides some implications to EFL teachers in reading class.

2. Literature Review

To understand the schema theory better, first of all, it is of importance to learn a bit about the relationship between schema theory and reading. Next, this section will make a relatively thorough review of previous researches on schema theory in reading teaching aboard and at home.

2.1 Relationship between schema theory and reading

The emergence of schema theory in 1960s pushed cognitive science into a new level. Schema as a core concept of the theory is an abstract information structure, which originally come from Gestalt psychology. The main representatives of modern schema theory are known as Anderson, Rumelhart and Carrell, and so on. They have perfected modem schema theory. Schemata are knowledge structures or structural networks stored in minds explaining people’s understanding and awareness to the world. In others words, schemata refer to an organized chunk of information, knowledge or experience. Schema theory claims that readers possess different background knowledge. Everyone has a specific store of knowledge gained through a lifetime of experience. The essence of reading processing is to activate the reader’s existing schema, which is an interactive processing. The author, linguist Johnson from the US thinks reading as a bridge between the new and known knowledge. That is when people understand new things, they need to link them with known concept and experience (i.e. Background knowledge), and the degree of understanding depends on existing schema in their minds. This also explains why readers can not comprehend a text with all unfamiliar subjects even if they grasp the meaning of each word. Howard (1987) pointed out that the role of schema is not only facilitating us to perceive the world but also facilitating us to understand language. As Goodman summarized “Reading is a selective process. It involves partial use of available minimal language cues selected from perceptual input on the basis of the reader’s expectation. As this partial information is processed tentative decisions are made to be confirmed, rejected or refined as reading progresses.” Hence, most reading researchers believe that schema is the driving force in the reading comprehension process.

2.2 Previous researches on schema theory in reading teaching abroad and at home

A large number of researches have been conducted both abroad and at home about applying the schema theory to reading comprehension.

2.2.1 Previous researches on schema theory abroad

Johnson (1981) carried a study to investigate the influence of the cultural sources on the reading comprehension. Half of the participants read the un-adapted English texts of two stories, one from Iranian folklore, and the other from American folklore, while the other half read the same stories in adapted English. Results revealed that the origin of the story in the culture and semantic complexity of the story had greater impact on comprehension than syntactic complexity. Another experiment conducted by Johnson in 1982, which was set to test the impacts of the reading comprehension of constructing background knowledge. The research result suggested that the background knowledge gained by the personal previous experience would be helpful for students to comprehend the given passage despite the unknown vocabulary. In other words, new words wouldn’t seem to play a vital role in understanding the article.

Carrell (1987) tried to conduct a research to examine the combined interaction of content and formal schema in a single study, distinct from many researches which studied them separately. The experiment showed that teaching textual structure knowledge could help students to improve their reading comprehension ability. Later, Wallance (1992) carried out an experimental study of the influence of teaching to build new knowledge of reading comprehension when reading on a topic for which the subjects had previous or cultural knowledge. The study proved that teaching students a new topic could be helpful for students to build schemata.

Goodman (1996) performed a research on the effectiveness of previewing ability in students’ comprehension of English materials, and teaching them to read for information. In his research, previewing was accomplished by introducing students to the themes of a text and asking them to freely write on some of the opinions in that text, which pushes students to make predictions about the text.

Nigel Stott (2001) held the opinion that enough extensive reading could encourage students to activate prior knowledge. The schema will become abundant during the extensive reading process, and it changes systematically as learners grow up.

Neil (2003) provided teachers with some practical classroom activities to activate prior knowledge, such as pre-reading discussion, semantic maps, the activation of text organization, prediction and so on.

2.2.2 Previous researches on schema theory at home

In China, some scholars have also conducted researches based on schema theory since it was first introduced to China. Since 1985, the Schema Theory have been accepted by Chinese scholars and adopted in the second language reading research.

In 1988, Qi Luxia and Wang Chuming (24-30) conducted a study to investigate the influence of background and complicated language knowledge on English reading comprehension. The result showed that the influence of background knowledge was more than that of complicated language knowledge in English reading comprehension. In 2004, Wei Han and Zhang Baicheng conducted a survey, which showed that in the last 10 years from 1987 to 1996, there were only 18 articles on schema theory published. Since then, domestic studies in this field entered into an active period. More and more researchers have begun to pay more attention to schema theory. They tried to find out the different phenomena of reading comprehension from the perspective of schema theory. In the following years, lots of relevant articles have been steadily increasing, such as The Application of the Schema Theory in EFL Reading in Senoir English by Yang Yonggang (2001), Schema Theory and English Reading Comprehesion in Senior Middle School by He Yunan (2003), Schema Theory and English Reading Comprehension by Li Aihua (2006).

The researches on schema theory mentioned above demonstrate that schema has a great influence on English reading comprehension. Besides, further studies on schema theory should be made into the scientific and systematic construction of schemata.

3. Schema Theory

3.1 The definition of schema theory

As we know, different scholars hold different opinions about schema. It was first noticed by Kant in 1781. But Bartlett used it first in 1932 in his classic study of how human memory works. He put forward the concept that: an active organization of past experiences, which must always be supposed to be operational in any well-adapted organic response. (Bartlett 201). According to Rumelhart, “a text only provides directions for learners as to how they should retrieve or construct meaning. This previously acquired knowledge structures are called Schema” (Rumelhart 27). In 1977, Anderson claimed that “comprehending a text is an interactive process between the learners’ background knowledge and the text. Efficient comprehension requires the ability to relate the textual material to one’s own knowledge. Comprehending words, sentences, and the entire text involves more than just relying on one’s 1inguistic knowledge.” He also pointed out “every act of comprehension involves one’s knowledge of the world as well.”

Generally speaking, schema refers to an abstract structure of knowledge. It is abstract in the sense that it summarizes what is known about a variety of cases that differ in many particulars. Based on the existing schema in their minds, learners restructure reading materials to achieve understanding.

Schema theory was proposed by Banlett (1932), which emphasized the necessity of background knowledge and schema (knowledge of structures) in text comprehension. It needs learners to combine their own background knowledge (pre-existing knowledge and past experience) with the information in a text to comprehend the text. All learners have unique schema (background information) and these are also often culture-specific. Information that does not fit into these schemata may not be comprehended accurately.

According to schema theory, when learners obtain knowledge, they try to link new things with known concepts and the experience stored in minds that help them to make sense of that knowledge. The individuals break down information into chunks which are then categorically stored in the brain for later recall.

3.2 Types of schema theory

In order to get a better understanding of how schema theory operate in the assistance of reading comprehension. It is necessary to draw a distinction between the different types of schemata. At the beginning of 1980s, Carrel divided the schema into two types：content schema and formal schema. But later with the development of schema, most of the scholars believe that the reader’s reading ability is mainly determined by three schemata--language schema, content schema and formal schema.

Language schema (linguistic schema) usually means readers’ knowledge of the basic elements of a language, for instance, words, phrases, grammar and sentence structures. As we all know, basic language knowledge like vocabulary, grammar and sentence structure plays an important role during understanding a text, especially at the elementary stage of learning. If readers don’t have basic vocabulary and grammar knowledge, any reading strategy or skill would be useless. Poor language schema makes the big obstacle and hindrance for fast reading and correct understanding. So the more language schema readers have in their minds, the faster and nicer they acquire information, and the better understanding they might have. Compared with formal and content schema, language schema is elementary and essential. Without it, the other two schemas (content schema and formal schema) cannot come into effect at all.

Content schema refers to the background knowledge of the content area of a text or the topic a text talked about (Carrell 1988). There is profound culture in this kind of schema. The basic unit of language is the word, carrying cultural knowledge of that language, its meaning being generated in a specific cultural environment. If students cannot understand the text literally, they have to apply cultural background knowledge to achieve understanding. In other words, if students are lack of related background knowledge related to reading materials, such as the related cultural, social organization, religious values, customs, geography and other aspects of knowledge, they wouldn’t establish correct relationship between language symbols and the referring, that is to say, students can’t activate corresponding content schema.

Formal schema, often known as textual schema, refers to background information about differences among rhetorical and logical structures, including different genres, different structures, different kinds of stories, different types of articles, and so on.

Similarly, we might expect a formal lecture of a traditional kind to have an introduction and overview, a series of sections, possibly with a summary at the end of each. Formal schema described as encoded, abstract, internalized, coherent patterns of discoursed and textual organization that guide expectation in our attempts to understand a meaningful piece of language. According to the classification of linguistics, reading materials can be classified into four groups: exposition, description, argumentation and narration. There are actually various types in daily reading like newspaper articles, reports, poems, prose, essays, autobiographies, correspondence and so on.

3.3 The functions of schema theory

Schema plays a very important role in reading comprehending. It is so vital for teachers and students to understand the functions of schema that they can consciously and actively put them into effective use. In 1984, Anderson claimed that schema has at least six major functions: (1) Schema provides slots for assimilating additional knowledge. (2) Schema provides part of the basis for determining the important aspects of a text, that’s to say, helps readers judge what is important. (3) Schema aids in making inferences that go beyond the information literally stated in a text. (4) Schema helps summarize and edit materials. (5) Schema facilitates an orderly memory search for relevant information; in other words, reader is helped to gain access to the particular information by tracing through the schema used to structure the text. (6) Schema functions in inferential reconstruction. When there are gaps in memory, schema, along with the specific information, helps generate hypotheses about the missing information. Now, scholars hold that the schema theory in reading mainly has the following functions：

To begin with, a schema provides the background knowledge or context which is needed for the interpretation of specific input that is relevant to the schema. When readers find certain specific or essential information is insufficient in the reading materials, they will activate the corresponding schemata and supplement the information which is related to the material during the reading comprehension. To a certain extent, this background knowledge is the essential requirement to make sense of a specific input.

Secondly, once a schema is identified, the content of the schema provides the knowledge needed for readers to expect and predict future events and states (Schank and Abelson 1977). With the schema, the readers can guess the type of the text and have different anticipation towards the topics of different types of texts. The students can guess the latter context of the text with the help of the former context of the text if they make good use of schema. Expectations are generated by schemata at different levels of structure and knowledge domains. A subset of the expectations is ultimately correct; however other subsets are eventually disconfirmed. Therefore, it is sensible to state that schema is the elements which are beneficial generate expectations during reading.

What’s more, another function of a schema is to provide the background knowledge that is relevant for generating inferences. When a statement is comprehended in prose, the reader constructs a cognitive representation which contains a rich configuration of inferences. These inferences come from somewhere and this is not always supplied by linguistic knowledge.

Next, a schema facilitates selective allocation of attention. A schema provides part of one basis for determining the important aspects of a text. It is hypothesized that the skillful readers use importance as one basis to allocate cognitive resources. In other words, they know where to pay close attention.

Finally, a schema facilitates editing and summarizing. Since a schema contains within itself criteria of importance, it makes the readers be able to produce summaries that include significant propositions and omit trivial ones. Generally speaking, it is much easier for the readers to understand the text about familiar topics than the unfamiliar one.

4. Applications of Schema Theory in English Reading Teaching 

4.1 Teaching method in schema-oriented English reading class

According to schema theory, there are three stages in reading teaching procedures: pre-reading activities, while-reading activities and post-reading activities.

First, pre-reading activities. Pre-reading activities will help students have a prediction before reading and activate their prior background knowledge. This method of prediction before reading also facilitates students to have a thorough understanding of the whole text. However, considering differences of the existing knowledge and the ability of understanding, teachers usually introduce the background knowledge of the text in advance in order to activate the schemata already stored in students’ brains and build new ones before their prediction. At this stage, some activities are designed to develop the students’ interest in the text and to encourage them to predict the text by using their background knowledge about the topic and the pictures.

Second while-reading activities. This is the vital and complicated step of the application of schema theory to guide reading teaching. It is its complexity that requires teachers to carefully design and arrange their class according to the actual situation. Various ways can be used in class, such as skimming for the main ideas; scanning for the details of the article. In this stage, classroom activities were designed to train the students to grasp the main idea and the organization of the text, improve their reading skills and train them to use appropriate reading strategies according to different reading tasks in reading.

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