Study on Applying Schema Theory to Improving Students’ Listening Competence

【Abstract】With the globalization booming， listening competence have been emphasized. In order to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of EFL listening teaching， this essay intends to apply schema theory as guidance to summarize some principles about EFL listening teaching .

【Key words】Schema Theory； Listening Competence

【作者簡介】沈忻（1990.01-），女，湖北武汉人，武汉商学院外国语学院，硕士，讲师，研究方向：英语教育。

【基金项目】 本文是湖北省教育科学规划2018年度重点课题（博弈论视角下基于MOOC的大学英语教学改革策略研究）（项目编号：2018GA054）的研究成果之一。

1. Introduction

With the boom of international trade and multicultural communication around the world， students communicative competence is highly required in the field of EFL teaching. It is undeniable that listening as one of the four basic language skills to exert a right level of communicative competence. Due to the unscientific teaching modes， lots of Chinese teachers have failed to draw students interests and focused too much on teaching vocabulary and grammar instead of related schematic knowledge. Hence， the thesis of this essay intends to apply schema theory as guidance to improve listening teaching and learning quality in current EFL classrooms.

2. The factors influencing listening comprehension

In order to teaching and learning listening comprehension better， the factor that involved in the listening process need to be considered. As constructing meaning from the messages depends on the factors both in the listeners head and in the surrounding environment. In other words， it can be divided into internal factors and external factors.

The internal factors will work during the three distinct stages dealing with reception of utterance： “echoic memory”， short-term memory and long-term memory （Underwood，1989）. Phonetics， grammar， vocabulary or culture information， the more these relevant knowledge listeners grasp， the better listening standard will be. Thus it should be noticed in EFL classrooms that emotional factors effects during listening teaching and learning.

In terms of external factors， the selection of input may be concerned which concludes the familiarity of topics， types， speed， accents and genres of input. By demonstrating the factors above， EFL teachers can apply or modify the methods they were using to develop students listening abilities from both internal and external factors. And teachers can also concern students emotional situation or select those appropriate and various texts when they listening.

3.Models of the listening process concerning the Schema theory

The term of “schema” was first put forward by Kent in 1781， however， Bartlett（1932） was actually the first psychologist to use schema in sense that it is used today. He concludes “schema” as an “active developing pattern” which is consist of peoples past-experience. He believes that these prior experiences enable listeners and readers to make prediction about the incoming text.Both language comprehension in reading and listening seen as information processing have taken advantages of bottom-up and top-down model in the area of EFL teaching and learning.

A. Bottom-up processing model

Carrel and Eisterhold s（1988） believe that this process is driven by the incoming data from the bottom-level schemata. When the lower level of schemata converge to higher one， the more relevant schemata would be activated. Anderson and Lyson （1988） see the listeners in the bottom-up processing model as “tape recorder”. It is because in this model listeners receive and store the incoming text as recorder， from phonemes to syllables， words to clauses， then propositions to meaning. Listening comprehension， thus， is viewed as decoding process.

B. Top-down processing model

Top-down processing “occurs as the system makes general predictions based on higher level general schemata and then searches the input for information to fit into these partially satisfied， higher order schemata. Top-down processing is， therefore， called conceptually driven”. （Carrell & Eisterhold， 1988）. Compare to decoding every word of text， top-down model emphases the reconstruction of meaning by using higher order schemata stored in listeners memory.

4. Principles of schema theory application in listening classrooms

As discussed in the above sections， it has been proved that listeners prior knowledge plays an important role during the interactive listening processing. It looks very promising that applying schema theory in listening classroom will help students to make a thorough comprehension of listening texts. Thus， it is necessary to establish some key principles which are based on the principles for teaching listening comprehension and review of schema theory illustrated before：

A. Encouraging students to predict content from the title and certain information

When we listening， we are in the process of predicting or guessing from the content of a discourse. Predicting often begins with the title of a text. Teachers can help students by asking leading questions. To answer the questions， the students have to work very actively， searching for their prior knowledge about the questions.

B. Helping students to construct and activate schemata

Following this principle when pre-teaching listening， the background knowledge are all involved in the consideration so as to arouse the students interests and motivation and prepare them for a good listening. Once the needed schemata in the students mind are activated， interpretation of the text will be much easier.

C. Integrating both top-down and bottom-up processing models

Considering about the views of bottom-up model， it is highly required for linguistic competence. Listeners usually fail to notice the contextual and non-linguistic factor. However， in the top-down processing model， less proficient students may feel hardly to recall their prior knowledge. Therefore， the top-down and bottom-up model need reciprocal interact to achieve comprehension.

D. Helping students to accumulate suitable schemata

In the three stages of listening teaching， lots of tasks have been designed for pre-teaching and while-teaching. However， fewer for post-teaching. Helping students to accumulate all kinds of schemata to meet their needs is essential. And it is more efficient to remember schemata while doing post-teaching， that students can have up to date memory to fill the gaps.

5. Limitation and Conclusion

In the light of the analysis of the application of schema theory， it required great efforts to develop a new modern teaching approach. Teachers own quality and their belief are quite urgent matter in applying any pedagogical methods. Thus， teachers need to be aware of updated modern pedagogical methods from many ways to accumulate their own schemata.This essay analyzed the positive role of schema theory in listening teaching area， and modified an existing listening task as an application of schema theory in listening teaching to improving students listening competence in Chinese EFL classrooms.

References：

[1]Anderson，A.&Lynch;，T.Listening[M].Oxford：Oxford University Press，1988.

[2]Bartlett，F.C.Remembering[M].Cambridge：Cambridge University Press，1932.

[3]Carrell，P.L.& Eisterhold.J.C.Schema Theory and ESL Pedagogy[J]. TESOL Quarterly Vol，1983，17：4.

[4]Underwood，M.Teaching Listening[J].London：Longman，1989.