An Analysis of the Application of Schema Theory in College English Listening Teaching

Abstract

This paper aims to analyze the efficiency that can be brought about in college English teaching through the application of Schema Theory. It has developed by firstly focusing on the three classifications of Schema Theory, linguistic schema, content schema, and formal schema and two major models of information processing, bottom-up and top-down. The major effort is on the investigation of integrating the theoretical framework of the Schema Theory in English listening teaching typically featured with three stages: pre-listening, while-listening and post-listening. It has been found that in theoretically oriented listening, students, who have become active participators instead of passive listener, get fully prepared by investing themselves with his prior knowledge from the perspectives of form, content, and style of the oncoming materials. Educated predictions are made based on the schemata associated with the material and students are enabled to make judgments and adjustments in the listening process to meet the demands of the task and achieve a final evaluation with the help from the teacher. Meanwhile, students tend to update his previous schema and complete an improved and more systematic schema thus efficiently advance their listening proficiency.