图式理论在高中英语阅读教学中的应用

1、 . . . The Application of Schema Theory in English Reading Teaching in Senior High SchoolsByChen ShumiaoA thesissubmitted to the Foreign Language and Literature Department ofBaoji University of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillmentofthe requirement for the degree ofBACHELOR OF ARTSinENGLISH LANGU

2、AGBaoji, Shaanxi May, 201515 / 21The Application of Schema Theory in English Reading Teaching in Senior High SchoolsChen ShumiaoAbstract: 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 t

3、he importance of background knowledge which people previously acquired.It is a trend that schema theory is applied inEnglish reading teaching. It is also necessary for English reading teaching to enrich itself by adopting the schema theory. The development of studentsreading ability has always been

4、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

5、types and functions of the schema knowledge on English reading, and points out how schematheory is to be applied to English reading classes. Teachers should guide the studentsto make the best of the schema knowledge, so as to improve their English readingabilities and arouse their English reading in

6、terests. Schema can be used in theunderstanding of the language, readers use schema to fill in information that isntmentioned explicitly. When reading a new text, readers need the ability to relate thetextual materials to their own prior knowledge stored in their minds, becauseunderstanding and expl

7、anation of new knowledge depend upon schemata stored inones mind. So it is very important for teachers and students to understand thefunction of schemata and put them into effective use to improve students readingability.Key words: schema theory; senior English; reading; reading ability图式理论在高中英语阅读教学

8、中的应用树苗容提要：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

9、“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CONTENTSI.Introduction1II. The types and functions of schema theory22.1 The types of schema22.1.1 Linguistic schema22.1.2 Content schema

10、32.1.3 Formal schema3 2.2The function ofschema4III. Three models of reading and the problems in reading .53.1Bottom-up model53.2 Top-down model53.3 Interactive model63.4 Current situation of reading teaching in high schools7IV. The application of schema in reading teaching84.1Bulding up Linguistic s

11、chema.84.1.1Paying attention to vocabulary teaching94.1.2 Cultivating the grammatical ability94.2Building up content schema9 4.3Building up rhetorical schema10V. Conclusion11References12Acknowledgments 13The Application of Schema Theory in English Reading Teaching in Senior High SchoolsI. Introducti

12、onNowadays, 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 goo

13、d reading habit can not only broaden the studentshorizon but also improve the comprehensive quality to a certain extent. In traditional English reading teaching in senior high schools, teachers alwaysadopt the traditionalgrammar-translation method to teach reading, which hasnt emphasized the use of

14、content schemata(background knowledge), norformal schemata，that is to say, they often ignore the rhetorical organization of the texts. That is, the grammartranslation approach only pays attention to words，grammar, the translation of texts only puts emphasis on lots of writing exercises. As a result,

15、 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 st

16、udents dont 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 an

17、d 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 re

18、views 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.T

19、he types and functions of schema theoryThe 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

20、 how knowledge is mentally represented in the mind and used, schemata are created through experience with the world, and the persons 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

21、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 schemaSchema, according to the nature of the contents, can be classified as linguistic schema, the readers preexi

22、sting linguistic knowledge, content schema, the readers 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 knowle

23、dge: to be more specific, they refer to the knowledge of language about phonetics, grammar, vocabulary. The New Curriculum Standards requires that students shouldmaster the long and difficult sentences by analyzing the structure. It's aslo one of requirements of linguistic schema. Language is th

24、e 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 dont know more about the ellips

25、is, he or she will cant 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 sch

26、ema 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 schemaContent schema which refers to a reader's "background knowledge about the content area

27、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 sche

28、ma that related to the text, they only can translate every word into chinese. Thus, it is difficult for them to master the wholetextual materialalthough they own rich linguistic schema. For example, "A women without a man is like a fish without a bicycle". If students know about the femini

29、st 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

30、 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

31、 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.

32、 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 structure

33、s 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

34、 learn a foreign language in six weeks or your money will be turned back".2.2 The function of schemaA 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 a

35、bility 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 betweenthem is very close.They interact with each other close

36、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 ab

37、le 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 understandthe whole passage. On one hand, they have the extra function and

38、 can help readers to consider the context, eliminate of ambiguity and comprehend context accurately. In the process of the reading process andnew information acquisition, the reader's preexisting schema are activated by the content of the text and readers' schema knowledge which stored in th

39、eir 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 info

40、rmation, but also process and store it in their memory.III.Three models of reading and the problems in readingAccording 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

41、 authors 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 ar

42、e 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&

43、#160;model.3.1 Bottom-up modelFor a long time, people have a common understanding that reading starts from the letters and words. In 1972, the USA psychologist Gough formally propo

44、sed 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,

45、0;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 to

46、o simple, it only pays attention to the word and sentence comprehension, ignoring the influence of contextual factors in the process of reading. Under theguidance of the 

47、bottom-up model, the teachers teaching take the vocabulary andgrammarasthe center, adopting the method of analysis of grammatical structure, and ignoring the overall grasp of text&

48、#160;and the ability of analyzing the text. This model isnot conducive to broaden the knowledge of students and under the influence of thismodel, students easily form the

49、 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 o

50、pposite reading modeltop-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 th

51、e process of of reading, the reader doesnt 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, modi

52、fying 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 t

53、o the top-down model is used of the readers existing knowledge to analyze and guess the structure of the test, so if the readers knowledge structure is not complete, they will bring misunderstandings in the reading comprehension. In addition, the process of reading stressed inference and prediction,

54、 excessively leading to overlook the understanding of language knowledge.3.3 Interactive ModelAs mentioned above, no matter the top-down model or the bottom-up model, it is also has its limitations. On the basis of previous experience, combining the advantages of two kinds of model, the America arti

55、ficial intelligence expert Rumerhart has proposed the interactive model in 1977. He suggested that we should not only apply the bottom-up model, but also take advantages of the top-down model in our reading comprehension. Using the bottom-up model can help reader to activate the existing schema in b

56、rain in line with the information of text. Applying the top-down model can help the reader through the use of activated knowledge to predict and infer the connection of the input information with the text. “Each source of information contributing to a comprehensive reconstruction of meaning of the t

57、ext” (Eskey, 1988: 94).Meanwhile, it can help readers to overcome the difficulties which were brought by language problems, also contribute to the accumulation of language knowledge. We can get a lot of inspiration through the discussion and analysis on this three kinds of reading model. In the proc

58、ess of reading teaching, teachers should not only pay attention to the accumulation of knowledge, but also to make full use of the existing knowledge structure in students brain, making the knowledge structure and the existing schema interact with each other and complement each other. Thus the readi

59、ng comprehension can reach the best effect.3.4 Current situation of reading teaching in senior high schoolsThere are many factors which can influence the reading effect of senior high school students. For example, the lack of vocabulary, grammatical disorders, etc. This paper emphatically analyzes t

60、he existing reading obstacles under the influence of the schema theory of senior high school.We used to come across this situation that students can understand a text in the literal sense, but can not understand the actual ideological content and the authors writing intention(Anderson, 2003: 22). Th

61、ere are some existing situation in reading process. Firstly, reader does not have the schema that is related to the text. Secondly, although the reader possesses the schema that is related to the text,he has a few clues that can activate the schema. Thirdly, readers think they have understood the ac

62、tive, but they misunderstood the meaning of readers(D.E.Rumelhart, 1980). Any reading material consists of linguistic schema content schema and formal schemata. Readers can obtain the content schema and the formal schema through the linguistic schemata. Reading comprehension depends on the readers content schema and linguistic schema. Neither can do without the other. Although some st