Study on the Application of the Schema Theory to the Teaching of College English Reading

Abstract

Reading is one of the fundamental approaches for acquiring language and information, and it is an essential part of English language teaching. The most influential teaching theory is “bottom-up” and “top-down” reading theories. “Bottom-up” theory argues that reading process is the pure language decoding process, while “top-down” theory stresses the influence of the existing background knowledge on reading. These two theories only focus on a certain aspect of reading, and they can not interpret reading process effectively. According to schema theory, comprehending a text is an interactive process between reader’s background knowledge and the content of a text. Hence, schema theory has an important effect on teaching of English reading. Under the guidance of schema theory, this thesis attempts to explore the application of schema theory from three aspects: linguistic schema, content schema and formal schema respectively. It is hoped that this study will improve students’ reading ability and enhance the teaching effect of English reading in the long run.