Abstract
Reading comprehension accounts for a lot in English tests. As a key and difficult point in English teaching at high school, the traditional way which focuses on the infusion of vocabulary and grammar may lead to decline of students’ interest in English learning. It is important to find a suitable teaching method for high school students as soon as possible. The schema, which is also known as the background knowledge of students, plays a very essential role in their comprehension of reading materials. Therefore, this paper will concentrate on the exploration of schema theory to find out an English reading teaching method for high school English teachers, which can not only fundamentally improve the students’ English grades, but also effectively transmit useful reading strategies to them and help them form a complete and comprehensive framework of knowledge. Rumelhart proposes that schema is consisted of several variables that represent elements of concepts, and it is a kind of knowledge framework and categorizing system. Based on this definition, this paper attempts to explain the relationship between the schema and the students' reading comprehension process, summarize the concrete role and important influence of the content schema, formal schema and language schema in English reading teaching, and verify the feasibility of the application of schema theory. And a detailed teaching method, which includes the English teaching process before, in and after class will be proposed.
Highlights
The writer first transfers his own ideas and feelings to his readers with linguistic symbols, readers get stimulated by the linguistic symbols and begin to accept, imagine, modify, and understand what is transferred to him
[8] In 2003, Lu Zhongyi and Wang Zhe found from their experimental research that application of schema theory can improve their subjects’ reading comprehension
Students should have the chance to communicate about their learning and make self-evaluations and evaluations for others, so that they can make positive adjustment. To put it in a nutshell, the three kinds of schema: language schema, formal schema and content schema are closely connected with the reading process, and the schema theory can be put into practice to teach reading
Summary
Reading is “the cognitive process of decoding symbols to derive meaning.” [1] Zhang Biyin defines reading as the process of obtaining information from written material and having influence on the non-intelligence factors of readers. [2] The reading process involves identification and comprehension. The writer first transfers his own ideas and feelings to his readers with linguistic symbols, readers get stimulated by the linguistic symbols and begin to accept, imagine, modify, and understand what is transferred to him This is the process which endows meanings to the linguistic symbols. In English language testing, there exists a term “reading comprehension”, which is used to test the subjects’ abilities to read with some questions to answer. It is a complex dynamic process of mental activities in which readers predict, sort out and make interpretations based on their prior knowledge, and find the meanings of a text. How to improve the efficiency of English reading comprehension and achieve the best result has been one of the most attractive topics for language teachers and researchers
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