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英语是全世界适用范围最广的语言，它已经成为世界各地交流的最重要的工具，我们必须更加关注学生的英语写作能力。近年来中学生的英语写作正在变得越来越重要，我们都知道，英语写作的基础性的四个技能就是听说读写。所有这些技能都不能很好的被教授，所以语言的学习上是最困难的。
图式理论被应用于外语教学中。诸多专家都从不同角度探讨了图式理论与阅读理解的关系。图式理论在英语写作和教学中有着很重要的地位。本文介绍图式理论，把图式理论与写作教学相结合，这篇文章解决了怎样实施图式理论的策略，使学生认识到背景知识与写作的关系，引导学生在读的过程中采用不同的策略，以提高其阅读理解的能力。
Contents目录
I Introduction
1.1The state of the teaching of English writing in China
II Interpreting Schema Theory
2.1 Schema Theory
2.2 Types of Schema Theory
2.2.1 Language Schema
2.2.2 Content Schema
2.2.3 Formal Schema
III Current Situation of Schema Theory of writing English Teaching in middle School
3.1 The relationship of schema theory and English writing teaching
IV The Functions of Schema Theory of Reading English Teaching in Primary School
4.1the necessity to carry out the schema theory-guide teaching model
4.2 How to establish the schema theory—guide teaching model for writing
4.2.1 The importance of accumulation
4.2.2 Conceive schema
4.2.3 Figure out the structure of the passage
4.3 Help students to use the schema which they have had
4.4 Help students to build proper Schema Theory
4.5 The aspects teachers should pay attention to in teaching
V Conclusion
VI Bibliography:
VII Acknowledgements:
I Introduction引言
English is widely used in the present world. It has become the important communication tool all over the world. We have to pay more attention to students’ ability of English writing .Recent years, middle school English writing has become more and more important. As we all know, there are four basic skills in English writing. They are listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Among all these skills, writing can not be taught very well by our teachers. English writing is considered as the most difficult part in learning language. There have no effective way in learning or teaching English writing courses at present time .We can see that a large part of students are very weak in writing. When it comes to writing, a lot of problems still exist. Students make grammar mistakes; they can not express their ideas clearly; they can not make their sentences readable after learning for so many years. Why these things happen?Is it the influence of mother tongue?Are they lake of practice? Are they lake of interest in English writing?
All these problems make us find strategies to solve. Writing is one of the most important method s by which people may ‘‘explore their thoughts’’[zamel ,1982;197].Although great efforts have been devoted to English writing, proper writing skills of middle school students are still vulnerable. This passage is about the application of scheme theory in middle school English writing. There are three types of scheme theory. A language learner must master these three types of scheme theory. Only in this way, can they make great progress in the way of learning English writing. How to make middle school English writing more effective by applying scheme theory? This paper will have specific details to tell us how. Have you ever heard of that a student complain English writing is difficult.?So this paper offers English learners some writing strategies with the scheme theory. Only in this way, can they improve their English writing ability?
1.1The state of the teaching of English writing in China
For a long time, English teachers in our country have paid too much attention to the writing products, ignoring the writing progress.(Teng Chunhong,1993:65)and ignoring the consciousness of readers(Cao Jin1998:295)
The writing products approach is that compositions are only judged as final products and the evaluation of writing skills is just on the basis of the production of grammatically lexically accurate texts, emphasizing feedback from the teacher to the students’ compositions(Porto,2001:38). So the weakness of product approach is ignoring the process skills, such as planning the text, the audience, the generating the ideas and the organization of the text. After surveying the level of English writing of Chinese students studying abroad in Texas of the USA, Teng Chunhong(1993:6)says that teacher in China emphasizing the grammatical structure too much and ignore training the process of writing. Having difficulty in composing students often feel worried and some even lose heart in writing because they do not know how to write a composition and they do not learn the writing skills from others, which affects the quality of the teaching of English writing. In writing, a teacher can neither supervise the students’ actions, nor find the errors in organization and content immediately, nor know the pressure and anxiety involved in the writing. Wang Qiang et al( 2000:137)says:
“the teacher gives a topic or a selection, a set of requirements, and a time limit. The students finish the task within the limit and hand in the final product. The process that the students go through while doing the writing task is virtually ignored; that is, the teacher turns a blind eye to how the students produce the product.” In view of the students’ English writing ability is difficult to promote rapidly at present situation, many English teachers put forward the various kinds of solutions, but the effect is still not ideal. Schema theory is widely used in English reading and hearing teaching. Schema theory has the function of ascension English writing. Therefore, it is urgent to research into the teaching skills of English writing.
II Interpreting Schema Theory解释图式理论
2.1 Schema Theory
“Schema” was a philosophical concept first raised by Kant in 1781.It was fist used by Bartlett in 1932 in his study about how human memory works. Bartlett(1932)argued that the knowledge we carry around in our mind is organized into interrelated patterns. These are constructed from all our previous experiences of a given aspect of the experiential world, and they enable us to make predictions about future experience. During the course of our lives, we build up hundreds of mental schemata and they help us make sense of many situations. According to cook, “a mental representation of atypical instance”(Cook,1989:69) “cognitive constructs which allow for the organization of information in long-term memory”(Widdowson,1983:34)schema requires us to relate what we are learning to what we have already known. According to Anderson, schemata are active self-activating and self-revising.
2.2 Types of Schema Theory
2.2.1 Language Schema
The language schema refers to the understanding of the readers to form of the language structure and semantic structure and the language knowledge and ability of using language. This is the basis and prerequisite of English writing. A form of the structure and semantic structure of a language has close relationship with certain philosophy, logic, national way of thinking, which is the basis of discourse understanding. To some learners, they treat English as a second language, they must learn how to activate the related schema and to fill the space of the schema, and they must have certain degree of language ability. This ability mainly includes the learners' use ability and the master of vocabulary, grammar and usage. In the phase of the establishment of the language schemata, the main reason of the low level of students' writing is the shortcomings of vocabulary. In fact, the vocabulary at around 2000 is enough to meet the requirements of writing outline, and middle school students' average vocabulary is around 3000. So what is causing the middle school students poor vocabulary in their articles? Root cause is that students' grammar schema is not completely established and not aware both English and Chinese language grammar have great differences. English people usually followed by a small and local to the order of the whole in describing scene, expression time, and Chinese are just the opposite. English people usually use a complete sentence when they use sentences in dedicating. But Chinese, if the subject is obvious, it is usually hidden. So in writing, Chinese writing schema produced negative transfer to English writing. The students' articles have grammar mistakes and cause the ambiguity and obscure of expression. Students with Chinese thinking construct the English sentence, which appeared hybrid phenomenon in the Chinese language and the target language. In the writing teaching process, the teacher must make students understand the fundamental role of the language schema and build rich language schema actively. Students' knowledge of the language is rich, the more we can produce good effect.
2.2.2 Content Schema
Content schema means a reader’s background knowledge and past personal experience, and provides the comparative base for the reader. Content schema mainly includes the scene schema and readers' schema of existing knowledge which includes both a cultural or way of life, social subculture and the knowledge of the system. Cultural schema has the greatest impact in the content schema of writing. If in the mind of readers are lack of the cultural content schema, readers will have difficult to understand. Chinese students use English to write. They consider target readers very few, which can be called English people's cultural schemata. We often use many Chinese idioms allusions in the English writing. Target readers which are also short of cultural schemata were at sea. This phenomenon can be found everywhere. How to enable the content of the target readers' scheme knowledge can be a very important component of success in the English writing process. So the teacher should guide the student to strengthen the construction of the content schema, and guide students to pay attention to both English and Chinese cultures, teachers should teach them to use the knowledge of cultural schemata. Only in this way, can students improve their writing skills.#p#分页标题#e#
2.2.3 Formal Schema
Formal Schema, which is usually called textual schema, means the textual organizing pattern or rhetoric structure. It contains knowledge of different textual style and the understanding of texts using different style, linguistic, structure, glossary and grammar. There are many kinds of textual genres, such as literature, history, political science, psychology, ads, news, etc. There are many kinds of textual style: narration, explanation, argumentation, prose and so on. There are many kinds of structures: comparison and contrast, chronological order (working through passages that start at the beginning and finish at the end of a sequence of events), cause and effect (the relationship between action and reaction), order of importance (using the order in the writing to determine what is most important to the author) and of course, a text could be finished by using all the above structures.
Any author who plans to write an essay would surely consider two factors: content and result. How to arrange and organize the content by certain structure and logic? For example, the political essay is usually compared, and the news usually described, and the history usually the practiced. That is to say, every different essay has its own character and frame. The understanding of it is the foundation of Formal schema. In the process of reading, using the schema which suits to the text, quickening the organization and memory of the information could improve the reading ability. So if you want to understand a text, you should try to find out what kind of structure the text use.
III Current Situation of Schema Theory of writing English Teaching in middle School图式理论在中学英语教学中的现状
3.1 The relationship of schema theory and English writing teaching
Schema theory is widely used in the teaching of reading and listening in recent years. In fact, the process of writing also can use schema theory which we have in our head to build new schema. In this way, can we write good English works. Combine the schema theory and writing process, it is easy to find that they have intimate relationship. According to schema theory, when learners meet with a new English writing title, learners will take what they have in their brain to build structure and frame of their passage.
“…misjudgments and mismatches of schemata are particularly likely when people try to communicate across cultures and across languages. The resulting misunderstandings are endemic in the foreign language classroom” Cook said in his study (Cui Hongbin,2005) . This discovery of the role of schema theory became encouraging in the research in applying schema in language teaching. English writing just like listening and reading, can also be seen as communication across cultures and across languages, as Swales(2001) said,“ writing is an activity embedded in culture and it shouldn’t be viewed solely as an individually-oriented inner oriented cognitive process, but as much as an acquired response to the discourse conventions…within particular communities”. The author assumes that schema theory will also be of great importance English writing as listening or reading. Chinese middle school students are at their native language environments for a long time. Most of Chinese middle schools have no English native-speaking teachers and very good teaching books. As a result, their English writing is influenced by Chinese. The deficiency of middle school English writing may also be attributed to the following reasons according to the schema theory:
(1) poor material, devoid of substance
In the composition of the daily practice, many students encounter with the thesis topic which is not familiar to them. They often can say nothing, nowhere to begin. If material tip is given in Chinese, students usually translated into English simply. And if it is English tip, they often get into a loss. Especially for some requirements which we should analyze reasons, discussed topics, and explains the advantages and disadvantages. They can not analyze and described from various angles and aspects.
(2) Sentence drab
Sentence is the expression of the sentence structure, different content need to use different sentence to express. And the same content can also use different sentence to express, the effects of different sentence are also different. Only with the diversification of sentence, can our students write lively and interesting articles. To the same context, the vocabulary of a lot of students is very poor, and although peacetime they are trying to remember a great deal of word phrase. But in a flexible use of need, they often but not start. They can write articles which are full of the simple sentences. Sentences are simple. In a few complex sentences, which also limited to repeatedly use but, then, and, so the words. All of these have made the whole article inflexible, lifeless.
(3) Theme is not outstanding, the argument is not distinct
Students often lack the consciousness of giving the argument in this paper. This cause the theme is not outstanding enough and is not more brilliant to reflect the views of the author. Some students can't extract the right point of view from material tip, which caused the writing have no creative and readability.
(4) Paragraph text level is not clear, logical poor
As the traditional English teaching ignored the paragraphs and discourse on teaching, And only focus on knowledge of briefings, which caused the most students lack the textual structure for the article and the development concept of paragraph. Their articles are often with unclear levels in the discourse structure. The link of sentence or a paragraph is not smooth. Outstanding performance is that the whole article can't find the topic sentence. Even if the article has a topic sentence, but it still lack the effectively supporting sentences to specific. The whole article is lack of consistency and arrangement.
To sum up, the deficiency of the vocabulary is not the basic reason of students' English writing. It is because the students are lack of suitable content schema from the hint of material tip. If they have the correct schema, they are lack of discourse schema to use the existing material. Even with the content and discourse scheme, but they can't use complete English to express.
Therefore, a high quality English composition which require students to have basic knowledge of the language, but also to choose the appropriate style and material to the requirements of writing and construct the reasonable structure .The whole article will be of the completeness of the contents, language sentence fluent, clear and organized.
IV The Functions of Schema Theory of Reading English Teaching in Primary School图式理论阅读的功能
4.1the necessity to carry out the schema theory-guide teaching model
When we are writing, we want our passages to be logic. How to write a passage of logic? A good passage must have clear structure. A very good structure is crucial to a passage. How can we write a passage pf good structure? How can we figure out these problems? There must be ways to solve them. It is urgent to find effective ways.
Schema theory can solve these problems. Schema can give us clear structure to write. We can know how and what to write through schema. According to this, schema theory becomes necessary to writing teaching.
4.2 How to establish the schema theory—guide teaching model for writing
4.2.1 The importance of accumulation
As we all know, all the beautiful words we can write down come from our daily life, which are accumulated by us. Thus, accumulation is the foundation of writing, so is schema theory-guide writing. (Zhao Yali,2006)
4.2.2 Conceive schema
When we are teaching, we can activate the thoughts of students. We have several steps to let students activated. Firstly, students write down the title of the passage in the central of their paper. Secondly, students figure out all they know about the title to fulfill the paper around the center. Thirdly, students think out more contents about the title. In the end, the contents become rich.
4.2.3 Figure out the structure of the passage
Firstly, it is necessary to make the students figure out the structure of the paragraph.
A typical paragraph usually contains the topic sentence in the head, which can summarize the central idea. In the middle of the paragraph, there are more details to support the topic. And in the end of the paragraph, there are sentences to echo with the topic.
According to this, we can guide students to summarize topic sentence of the paragraph. They can write down the topic sentences by themselves and write more sentences around the topic sentence. They also can conclude the whole paragraph in the end of the paragraph.
4.3 Help students to use the schema which they have had
Students have the ability to write by accumulating words and phrases for a long time. It must be a very good chance to activate the schema which our students have possessed. The meaning is that to create a new schema by an old schema. In the classroom teaching, teachers should pay more attention to cultural information and help students enrich knowledge about the world .Then, they can create a new schema. When we teach students to write their favorite animals, we can guide them by ask question: what features this animal have? Because the students know their favorite animals very well, they can easily answer our questions. Now we can ask students to write down all what they know, and make a clear structure by themselves. Then we can make our students to read writing models .they can compare these two passages. In the end, theycan get inspiration from comparing.
Through comparing, students have formed the structure of schema. We can also give another title to practice their writing through schema. After many times, students can write very good passages and make big progress.#p#分页标题#e#
4.4 Help students to build proper Schema Theory
We may have an appropriate schema in our memory but fail to activate it for one reason or another. It is vital to help students to build the new schema except for the old ones. New schema can develop the levels of writing. We have two ways to build proper schema theory. What we have in our memory is not enough. We must be able to activate it at the proper time.
How to choose summary words is an important factor of ending the passage. The principle to choose summary words can be: exact, detailed, suitable, vivid, and colorful. How to choose conjunction is also very important. We must help students choose conjunctions they usually use.
4.5Schema and grammar
So many students in China limit themselves to produce simple sentences, because they are afraid of making grammar mistakes. It is obvious that grammar is also another important reason which limits the improvement of English writing level. During the writing teaching process, teacher can teach our students pay more attention to grammar. Only in this way, can our students master language well. They can use sentences without making grammar mistakes. Weaver(1996) has shown that the teaching of grammar and syntax within the context of students’ writing is more effective than when taught in isolation. Students should construct a schema during the learning of grammar .In this way, can they use it to guide their writing. Reading and writing are one of the effective ways of enriching writing schemata. Writing and reading are integral part of the English teaching. Reading is considered passive cognitive process in essence. But writing is seen as using vocabulary, grammar and language to construct sentences, paragraphs, and chapter. Reading is to provide clues from the articles to activate the corresponding readers' schema continuously. But writing is based on the author's writing objective to activate the original scheme, finally written process. From the point of view of schema theory, both of them contain the process of schema activation. During the teaching of English reading, teachers and students used to start from the understanding of the words, finally to the entire chapter of understanding. This method can not make the students' conscious to understand the meaning of whole text. They can't master the typical English article schemata. In reading, the corresponding schema process is unconscious. This not only cause difficulty in reading comprehension, but also affects the understanding of structure of English article. Then, it appeared that students use the structure of English vocabulary to write Chinese English composition. Therefore, the major goal of English teaching is to try to get students to know the content to improve the students' overall English ability. English writing is the main means to test students' English proficiency .If we want to improve English learners' writing level, and we must spend time on the schema teaching. In the students' English writing, teachers can not only correct language mistakes, and oversight style structural problems.
4.5 The aspects teachers should pay attention to in teaching
The application of Schema theory in high school English writing teaching, according to schema theory, the process of writing is that the author obeys writing requirements, the author extract related subject from the language schemata (language elementary knowledge), content schema (related subject matter knowledge) and form schema (genre and language features words), it is the process of positive thinking, screening, and creating. The writing process is to take related schema knowledge, select the appropriate language, style, vocabulary, sentence structure, etc, and constantly weigh, modification. If there is no schema, writing task can't complete. Since the schema plays an important role in English writing, then the middle school English teachers should pay attention to the application of schema theory in high school English writing teaching. Teacher should use all sorts of methods to construct, consolidate and constantly enrich the students' schema so that we can lay a solid foundation for writing. Teachers should stimulate the students' existing schema, guiding them in writing.
First, teachers should pay attention to the construction of students' schema knowledge. For instance, teachers can conclude or let the student to summarize the relevant people's quality, pollution, agriculture, tourism, culture, education, natural disasters, and other aspects of the words, phrases, and learning to express method and sentence patterns and relevant knowledge. All of these can enrich students' big content schema. The teacher can also let students know English letters, notice, diary, the application letter and style of the format and exposition and narrative, the argumentation of different language characteristics and the language organizational characteristics, in order to enrich the students' form schema. At the same time, the teacher must strengthen the basic knowledge of English teaching and enables the student to master the basic vocabulary that written expression need, grammar and sentence patterns and usage. In this way, can students construct and enrich the students' language schemata. It must be pointed out that the teacher should activate students' regularly. Schema and let students extraction using existing schema. The schema in the brains of students can be strengthened, and gradually become rich. It is a way to lay a foundation for future writing.
Second, teachers should be good at activating the students' mind .What exist in their mind are the language schemata, form schema and content schema. According to this, students have something to write. For example, teachers can form brainstorm to activate students' mind before students began to write, and use multimedia or display on the blackboard, then teachers let students to start writing. In this way, students can have something to write, and their existing schema get consolidated or even richer, and this schema can benefit reading and writing. In addition, teacher can also educate students' writing from the genre and the subject. Such as, teachers can train students to write about the natural disaster, letters and other topics of the genre or notice of the essay. Teachers can let students reading some of the language of the real thing, let the students to experience. And then let them to write, they can compare from language, structure after writing. This helps students to understand both English and Chinese language in the differences of the expression and narrative methods, and make them learn how to choose words, organization articles.
V Conclusion结论
This article discusses the origin of schema theory and concepts, and then presents the type of schema and its function, and finally discusses the application of schema theory in English writing. Schema is the premise of the writing. Students are lack of schema in their mind and would not be able to perform effective writing. In the teaching, the teacher must strengthen the teaching of grammar, vocabulary and other basic knowledge to enrich the students' language schema. Teachers should let students familiar with various genres and different facets of essay style with characteristics and construct a perfect students' form schema and content schema. At the same time, if the schema theory can work effectively work in writing teaching still depends on the students' subjective initiative. Therefore, the teacher should pay attention to the application of schema theory, but also pay attention to help students to set up the correct learning motivation. Teachers stimulate students' interest in study, and build a good attitude. It is a way to make students construct schema knowledge by themselves, which can lay a solid foundation for effective English writing.
VI Bibliography
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VII Acknowledgements
First of all, I would like to express my gratitude to all the teachers at the College of Jingjiang, Sichuan University, whose instructions and guidance have made my four years at the university a truly rewarding experience. Words fail me when I try to express my heartfelt thanks to my supervisor, Mr. Zhang, for all his inspiring ideas and kind help throughout the process of my thesis writing. Without his helpful suggestions, guidance and patience, the completion of this thesis would not have been possible.
My thanks also go to my fellow classmates and friends who have rendered me their generous help.
I am particularly grateful to my parents for their strong support and deep care given to me during the process of my thesis writing.
I am also deeply indebted to the author mentioned in the bibliography. Their academic research has given me a great deal of inspiration.#p#分页标题#e#
It is my pleasure to dedicate this thesis to them all.
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