Abstract

Schema theory has been one of the prevailing theories in foreign language teaching in the past twenty years. Schema is one’s generic knowledge about the world, namely a person’s “background knowledge” or “pre-existent knowledge”. The theory of how a reader or a listener uses his schematic knowledge to language comprehension when reading or listening is called schema theory.

On the basis of previous researches, the paper discusses the application of schema theory in the teaching of listening in detail. Listening class of three-stage model (pre-listening, while-listening and pot-listening) is described in detail. In the re-listening stage, the teacher lead students to do some warm-up activities like discussion about the listening topic with leading out key words, in order to help students build up the new schemata or activate the previous schemata. In the while-listening stage, the teacher helps students to apply some strategies while listening so that they can comprehend and recall better. In post-reading stage, what students have listened is consolidated by some exercises f combining listening with speaking and writing. They are asked to retell the listening content. The most outstanding features of this model are that it emphasizes the function of pre-existent knowledge in listening comprehension. Thus, it improves the effect of listening teaching. 

In order to verify the effect of “three-stage model”, a control experiment and questionnaires are conducted. The subjects are 60 students from Hangzhou No.15 Junior Middle School. The “three-stage model” was used in the control class during experiment. After the experiment, the control class will be given questionnaires. Their sores of listening test will be analyzed by SPSS statistical package. The study confirms the positive effects of the class of three-stage model with schema theory on students’ listening comprehension.

The paper consists of six chapters. Chapter one is the introduction to the purposes and the significance of this paper. Chapter two is a brief review of literature. In chapter three the writer explores in detail how the “three-stage model” of teaching listening is applied and put forward the hypothesis. Chapter four describes the methods of a small-scale experiment and questionnaires. Chapter five records the results and Chapter six discusses about them. Then come conclusion and limitation in Chapter seven. 

Keywords: schema; schema theory; listening comprehension; English listening teaching

Contents

Abstract

摘  要

1. Introduction-1

2. Literature Review-2

2.1 Schema Theory-2

2.1.1 The Concept of Schema-2

2.1.2 The Types of Schema-2

2.1.3 The Formation and Development of Schema Theory-3

2.2 Listening comprehension-4

2.2.1 Concepts-4

2.2.2 Modes-4

2.2.3 Influence Factors-5

2.3 Schema Theory and Listening Comprehension-5

2.3.1 Relieving Nervousness-5

2.3.2 Predicting-5

2.3.3 Filling the Information Gap-5

2.3.4 Filtering Information-6

2.3.5 Promoting Memorizing-6

3. Problem and Hypothesis-7

3.1 Problem-7

3.2 Hypothesis-8

4. Methods-9

4.1 Participants-9

4.2 Tools-9

4.3 Procedure-9

5. Data Analysis-10

5.1 The Result of Pre-test-10

5.2 The Result of Post-test-10

5.3 The result of questionnaires-10

6. Discussion-12

6.1 Discussion about the Scores-12

6.2 Discussion about the Questionnaires-12

7. Conclusion-13

Appendix A-14

Appendix B-16

Appendix C-17

Appendix D-18

References-19