图式理论在高中英语阅读教学中的应用.doc

The Application of Schema Theory in English Reading Teaching in Senior High Schools
By
Chen Shumiao

A thesis
submitted to the Foreign Language and Literature Department of

Baoji University of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillmentof

the requirement for the degree of

BACHELOR OF ARTS
in
ENGLISH LANGUAG
Baoji, Shaanxi
May, 2015

The Application of Schema Theory in English Reading Teaching in Senior High Schools
Chen Shumiao

Abstract: Schema theory was proposed by Bartlett in the middle of 1870s. A schema refers to the knowledge structure stored in brain. Schema theory has put the emphasis on the importance of background knowledge which people previously acquired. It is a trend that schema theory is applied in English reading teaching. It is also necessary for English reading teaching to enrich itself by adopting the schema theory. The development of students’ reading ability has always been one of the primary objectives in English teaching. However, English reading teaching has been influenced by the traditional teaching method, taking the words and grammar as the main teaching goal, neglecting the training of reading skills and the using of “schemata” knowledge. This paper discusses the types and functions of the schema knowledge on English reading, and points out how schema theory is to be applied to English reading classes. Teachers should guide the students to make the best of the schema knowledge, so as to improve their English reading abilities and arouse their English reading interests. Schema can be used in the understanding of the language, readers use schema to fill in information that isn’t mentioned explicitly. When reading a new text, readers need the ability to relate the textual materials to their own prior knowledge stored in their minds, because understanding and explanation of new knowledge depend upon schemata stored in one’s mind. So it is very important for teachers and students to understand the function of schemata and put them into effective use to improve students’ reading ability.
Key words: schema theory; senior English; reading; reading ability

图式理论在高中英语阅读教学中的应用
陈树苗

【内容提要】：图式理论是Bartlett在19世纪70年代提出来的，图式指的是储存在大脑中的知识结构，图式理论将重点放在人们先前获得的背景知识中。现在有将图式理论应用于英语阅读教学的趋势，英语阅读教学有必要通过采用图式理论来丰富自己。发展学生的英语阅读能力在英语教学中已经成为基本目标。然而，英语阅读教学受传统教学法的影响把单词和语法作为主要的教学目标。忽视了阅读能力的训练和图式的应用。本文探讨了图式知识在阅读中的作用，提出了图式理论在英语阅读教学中的具体设想，教师应该引导学生充分发挥自己已有图式的作用，来提高学生的英语阅读理解能力，提高学生英语学习的兴趣。因为图式是头脑中的“先存知识”或“背景知识”，它可用于语言理解中，读者借助记忆中激活的知识结构来填补文本中未表达出的细节内容，从而达到阅读理解的目的。读者的每一次理解都需要已有知识的参与，根据已有的知识来重新获取或构建文本意义，达到阅读理解的目的。因此，学习者应该在阅读过程中充分利用这些图式知识来提高阅读理解能力。
【关键词】: 图式理论；高中英语；英语阅读；阅读能力

CONTENTS
I. Introduction 1
II. The types and functions of schema theory 2
2.1 The types of schema 2
2.1.1 Linguistic schema 2
2.1.2 Content schema 3
2.1.3 Formal schema 3
2.2The function of schema 4
III. Three models of reading and the problems in reading . 5
3.1 Bottom-up model 5
3.2 Top-down model 5
3.3 Interactive model 6
3.4 Current situation of reading teaching in high schools 7
IV. The application of schema in reading teaching 8
4.1Bulding up Linguistic schema. 8
4.1.1 Paying attention to vocabulary teaching 9
4.1.2 Cultivating the grammatical ability 9
4.2 Building up content schema 9
4.3 Building up rhetorical schema 10
V. Conclusion 11
References 12
Acknowledgments…………………………………………… 13
The Application of Schema Theory in English Reading Teaching in Senior High Schools
I. Introduction
Nowadays, reading plays a dominant role in the four skills of the foreign language learning. It is the foundation and an important way to improve students’ listening, speaking, writing and abilities of translating something. It is obvious that mastering an effective reading skills and forming a good reading habit can not only broaden the students’ horizon but also improve the comprehensive quality to a certain extent.
In traditional English reading teaching in senior high schools, teachers always adopt the traditional grammar-translation method to teach reading, which hasn’t emphasized the use of content schemata(background knowledge), nor formal schemata，that is to say, they often ignore the rhetorical organization of the texts. That is, the grammar–translation approach only pays attention to words，grammar, the translation of texts only puts emphasis on lots of writing exercises. As a result, students only learn to word by word, and the grammar-translation approach teaching gradually bacame more and more important. This grammar-translation approach supposes that reading is a rather passive decoding process which puts emphasis on the importance of bottom-up model. This results in many students don’t have a good reading abilities. The purpose of my research is to make the schema theory be familiar to students and English teachers in senior high school and applied it to English reading and teaching effectively. Teachers through the process can activate students’ background knowledge and build up formal schema, making the students have a good command in reading comprehension, improving the students’ reading comprehension abilities..
My thesis structure will be divided into five parts. In the first part, the background and the significance of the study are introduced and literature reviews are explored. In the second part, the types and functions of schema theory are introduced. In the third part, the reading models and current situation of reading are introduced. In the fourth part, schema theory is applied to English reading teaching. In the fifth part are the conclusions.

II. The types and functions of schema theory
The schema theory was first proposed by German psychologist Bartlett in 1932. He defines schema as “an active organization of past reactions, or past experience”. Rumelhart came up with this concept of schema and described schema theory basically as a theory of how knowledge is mentally represented in the mind and used, schemata are created through experience with the world, and the person’s culture, which includes the interactions with people, objects and events within that culture (Dr Heather Winskel, 2006).
From the above definition, we can conclude that knowledge acquisition is based on the previous experience and concepts which are stored in brain. This stored knowledge along with its storage structure is called schema.
2.1 The types of schema
Schema, according to the nature of the contents, can be classified as linguistic schema, the reader’s preexisting linguistic knowledge, content schema, the reader’s prior knowledge of the content area of the text, and the formal schema, the knowledge of the rhetorical structure of the text (Carrell, 1983:172).
2.1.1 Linguistic schema
Linguistic schema refers to the reader's preexisting linguistic knowledge: to be more specific, they refer to the knowledge of language about phonetics, grammar, vocabulary. The New Curriculum Standards requires that students should master the long and difficult sentences by analyzing the structure. It's aslo one of requirements of linguistic schema. Language is the carrier of information. Vocabulary is the basic element of language. Facing an article which is full of new words, the reader will arise the feeling of being feared by it immediately. Linguistic schema is a necessary schema for students. For example: if the students don’t know more about the ellipsis, he or she will can’t understand the following sentence:“Had we used better irrigation methods, we would have saved half of water resources”. Its meaning is “if we used better irrigation methods, we would have saved half of our water resources”. Thus, in the initial stage of leaning, linguistic schema is a decord which be replaced by the speculation according to the experience. Reader who wants to improve his reading effects, he should have a good command of meaning and grammar.
2.1.2 Content schema
Content schema which refers to a reader's "background knowledge about the content area of a text". That is to say, students are supposed to have an ability to activate their preexisting knowledge and then interact them with the texture material. An effect way to learn English is to connect the new information with their prior knowledge.
If the readers do not have the content schema that related to the text, they only can translate every word into chinese. Thus, it is difficult for them to master the whole textual material although they own rich linguistic schema. For example, "A women without a man is like a fish without a bicycle". If students know about the feminist movement knowledge of Anglo American countries, knowing about the background, the meaning is easy and it can be interpreted as “women don't need men at all". On the contrary, if the readers own more related content schema, they can comprehend the text easily. Thus, readers need to master more knowledge about all kinds of topics, such as geography, history, economy, culture, psychology, philosophy and so on.
2.1.3 Formal schema
“Formal schema” or “textual schema” are “background knowledge of the formal, rhetorical organizational structures of different types of the texts” (Carrell and Eisterhold 1983). We can know that formal schemata are something about rhetorical structures’ differences in reading, such as differences in genre, and the structure of fables, advertisement and so on.
Distinguishing the different rhetorical structures is a crucial skill as for high school students. A student whose language proficiency is too poor, and also don't familiar with the content of the article, he will face with big obstacles in the process of reading. However, if he owns the knowledge of formal schema, it will be conductive to understand the text according to different structures easily. Take an advertisement as an example: advertisement has its unique features. Using concise words and using phrases. For example, "Learn a foreign language in six weeks or your money back". If a student owns a rich formal schema, the meaning can be interpreted as “we promise you can learn a foreign language in six weeks or your money will be turned back".
2.2 The function of schema
A schema theory refers to the knowledge structure stored in brain. As we all know, the linguistic schemata are the basic knowledge of the language. Only grasp the linguistic schema, can we have ability to master the other schemata. The content schema is very important and it is the basis of comprehending the real meaning of text. The formal schema is of great importance in mastering its organizational structure. The relationship between them is very close. They interact with each other close and improve the reading effectively.
As mentioned above, linguistic schema is the foundation of the content schema and formal schema. If readers do not have a good command of the linguistic schemata, they would not be able to recognize the words, phrases and sentences in the text. Nor do they are able to use the information that is provided by the passage to evoke the related and appropriate content schemata and formal schemata. In the passage, content schemata and formal schemata are quite important for the students to understand the whole passage. On one hand, they have the extra function and can help readers to consider the context, eliminate of ambiguity and comprehend context accurately. In the process of the reading process and new information acquisition, the reader's preexisting schema are activated by the content of the text and readers' schema knowledge which stored in their brain can form the new schemata. To be more specific, schemata consist of the process of understanding. On the other hand, they have the function of selection. Readers have a choice to select the input materials in the process of reading. They often not only choose some important and useful information, but also process and store it in their memory.
III. Three models of reading and the problems in reading
According to Rumelhart, reading is a process of understanding written language. It begins with a flutter of patterns on the retina and ends (when successful) with a definition idea about the author’s intended message. Thus, reading is at once a“perceptual” and a “cognitive” process. It is a process which bridges and blurs these two traditional distinctions (Rumelhart, 1982:722).
Since people have different understanding of reading, so there are different opinions about how to carry out the reading teaching. Generally speaking, reading comprehension contains three model which are bottom-up model, top-down model and interactive model.
3.1 Bottom-up model
For a long time, people have a common understanding that reading starts from the letters and words. In 1972, the USA psychologist Gough formally proposed bottm-up model" through a serious experiment. This model considers that the reading process is a passive decoding process, that is, from the word to the sentence, clause to segment, and then to the understanding of the process of the text.
This model has revealed some phenomena in the process of reading, but the process is too simple, it only pays attention to the word and sentence comprehension, ignoring the influence of contextual factors in the process of reading. Under the guidance of the bottom-up model, the teachers’ teaching take the vocabulary and grammarasthe center, adopting the method of analysis of grammatical structure, and 
ignoring the overall grasp of text and the ability of analyzing the text. This model is not conducive to broaden the knowledge of students and under the influence of this model, students easily form the word for word and sentence for sentence reading habit, which leads to the decline of reading speed.

3.2 Top-down Models
There are some questions exist in the botton-up model, so the American psychologist Goodman proposed an opposite reading model——top-down model. Goodman believed that reading is an active psychological guessing and an interactive process. Reading was first viewed as a rather active decord process. Psycholinguistic guessing game is a process that the author and the reader communicate with each other. In the process of of reading, the reader doesn’t accept information passively, they take participate in the reading process actively, predicting from the exisiting knowledge structure and the information that the text provides. The whole reading comprehension process is a process of guessing proving, modifying and do the process again and again.
The top-down model is closely relevant to the schema theory. A schema refers to the systematical knowledge structure which stored in brain. Although the top-down model has solved some exisiting problems, this reading model still exist some shortcomings.
Due to the top-down model is used of the readers’ existing knowledge to analyze and guess t