Schema theory seeks to explain how we are able to cope with our constantly changing daily environment. Discuss

University Degree Education and Teaching

ABSTRACT

Schema theory seeks to explain how we are able to cope with our constantly changing daily environment. Obviously, we do not see each circumstance as unique and unfamiliar. We are able to recognize familiar elements and patterns (schema) in the activities unfolding around us. This enables us to behave correctly in situations as diverse as a history class, a fast food restaurant, or crossing a busy street in a large city in a foreign country.

Educationalists ought to become sentient with the ways to exploit potential knowledge (schemata) gained by learners who are already familiar with another language. Schema theory depicts the process by which readers coalesce their own background knowledge with the information in a text to comprehend that text. All readers carry different schemata (background knowledge) and these are also often culture bound. This is an important concept in ESL teaching and pre-reading tasks are often designed to build or activate the learner’s schemata. This study summarizes some of the research into schema theory and how its application enhances reading comprehension in ESL reading.

INTRODUCTION

Schema theory originated with studies of cognition. It is based on the belief that "every act of comprehension involves one's knowledge of the world as well" (Anderson et al. in Carrell and Eisterhold 1983:73). Thus, readers develop a coherent interpretation of text through the interactive process of "combining textual information with the information a reader brings to a text" (Widdowson in Grabe 1988:56). According to McCarthy (1991), schemata are “the underlying connections that allow new experiences and information to be aligned with previous knowledge” (p.168). Coherent relationships are required to make sense of text. Readers' mental stores are termed 'schemata' (after Bartlett in Cook 1997:86) and are divided (following Carrell 1983a) into two main types: 'content schemata' (background knowledge of the world) and 'formal schemata' (background knowledge of rhetorical structure). Content refers to clearly evident relationships obvious from a topic. Formal are distant connections based on understanding of generalizations and mindset while abstract involves hidden factors and thematic considerations. They are all in any text and a reader's experience affects interpretation.

As educators, we need to have an understanding of the theories behind reading comprehension and schemata theory and this is discussed in the section.

Review of Literature

Basically, schema refers to background knowledge. Theories and studies on background knowledge provides compelling evidence that it plays a significant role in reading comprehension.

I will start off with Gunning’s (1996) who identifies three main theories of reading comprehension. These theories are Schema Theory, Mental Models and Propositional Theory. .

Schema Theory

A primed knowledge that one already encompass concerning people, places, things, and events is the definition given by Gunning(1996). Kitao (1990) on the other hand says that the schema theory involves an interaction between the reader’s own knowledge and the text, which results in comprehension. This schema, as Gunning defined, can be very broad, such a schema for natural disasters, or more narrow, such as a schema for a hurricane. Each schema is "filed" in an individual compartment and stored there. In attempting to comprehend reading materials, students can relate this new information to the existing information they have compartmentalized in their minds, adding it to these "files" for future use. Based on the Schema Theory, depending on how extensive their "files" become, their degree of reading comprehension may vary.

Mental Model Theory

Another major theory we would like to discuss is the Mental Model. This model can be thought of as a mind movie created in one's head, based on the reading content. Gunning gives a detailed description of this process, stating that a mental model is constructed most often when a student is reading fiction. The reader focuses in on the main character and creates a mental model of the circumstances in which the character finds him or herself. The mental model is re-constructed or updated to reflect the new circumstances as the situation changes, but the items important to the main character are kept in the foreground according to Gunning, (1996).

Perkins (1991) identifies that sometimes misconceptions about important concepts reflect misleading mental models of the topic itself or the subject matter within which it sits. There are, however, interventions the teacher can do to help the reader to stay on track and create a more accurate picture. One suggestion is for the teachers to ask the students to disclose their mental models of the topics in question, through analogy, discussion, picturing, and other ways. This information gives the teacher insight on the student's knowledge gaps and misconceptions, therefore allowing them to help students reconstruct a more accurate picture.

Proposition Theory

This final theory explains about the involvement of the readers in constructing a main idea or macrostructure as they process the text. These main ideas are organized in a hierarchical style with the most important things given the highest dominance to be memorized.

Even though my main focus is the ‘Schema Theory’ all three models were elaborated because they are intertwined. Each one supports the other. In order to form a mental model in one’s head; one must have a schema of that topic already stored. According to the Proposition theory, the student is forming a mental model ...

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Proposition Theory

Forming a schema is the most basic comprehension tool used by students. As they become more advanced, they can build on their base of schemas and create mental models throughout the reading. The most complex comprehension tool is forming a series of propositions, which are constantly updated throughout the text.

Besides theories there are researches which were already done by many but most methodologies investigating the role of schemata or background/prior knowledge were variations on Carrell's (1987) paradigm. This study involved 28 Muslim Arabs and 24 Catholic Hispanic ESL students of high-intermediate proficiency enrolled in an intensive English program at a mid western university. Each student read two texts, one with Muslim-oriented content and the other with Catholic-oriented content. Each text was presented in either a well-organized rhetorical format or an unfamiliar, altered rhetorical format. After reading each text, the subjects answered a series of multiple-choice comprehension questions and were asked to recall the text in writing. Analysis of the recall protocols and scores on the comprehension questions suggested that schemata affected the ESL readers' comprehension and recall. Participants better comprehended and remembered passages that were similar in some way to their native cultures, or that were deemed more familiar to them. Further evidence from such studies also suggested those readers' schemata for content affected comprehension and remembering more than did their formal schemata for text organization. For example in the Carrell's (1987) study described above, subjects remembered the most when both the content and rhetorical form was familiar to them. However, when only content or only form was unfamiliar, unfamiliar content caused more difficulty for the readers than did unfamiliar form.

Steffensen and Joag-Dev (1984) conducted a study using two descriptions of weddings both written in English. One was a description of an American wedding, while the other was of and Indian (subcontinent) wedding. Both the Indian students, for whom English was an L2, and the American students, for whom English was the L1, read the descriptions and were asked to recall the descriptions. It was found that readers comprehended texts about their own cultures more accurately than the other. While the readers indicated that the words were easy to understand, the unfamiliar cultural protocol of an Indian wedding made the passage more difficult to remember.

Johnson's (1981) study investigated the effects of the cultural origin of prose on the reading comprehension of 46 Iranian intermediate advanced ESL students at the university level. Half of the subjects read the unadapted English texts of two stories, one from Iranian folklore and one from American folklore, while the other half read the same stories in adapted English. The subjects' reading comprehension was tested through the use of multiple-choice questions. The recall questions and the texts were also given to 19 American subjects for comparison purposes. Results revealed that the cultural origin of the story had a greater effect on comprehension than syntactic or semantic complexity of the text. In another study, Johnson (1982) compared ESL students' recall on a reading passage on Halloween. Seventy-two ESL students at the university level read a passage on the topic of Halloween. The passage contained both unfamiliar and familiar information based on the subjects' recent experience of the custom. Some subjects studied the meanings for unfamiliar words in the text. Results of recall protocols suggested that prior cultural experience prepared readers for comprehension of the familiar information about Halloween on the passage. However, exposure to the unfamiliar words did not seem to have a significant effect on their reading comprehension. Kang (1992) carried out an interesting study. Kang's study examined how second language readers filter information from second language texts through culture specific background knowledge. Korean graduate students with advanced English read stories and answered questions. A think-aloud protocol assessing their understanding and inferences indicated an effect of culture specific schemata and inferences upon text comprehension. Although all the variables and factors surrounding the issues of how culture shapes background knowledge and influences reading are not fully understood, there is agreement that background knowledge is important, and that content schema plays an integral role in reading comprehension. Overall, readers appeared to have a higher level of comprehension when the content was familiar to them. Given this, second language readers do not possess the same degree of content schema as first language readers, and hence, this can result in comprehension difficulties.

BACKGROUND

What is a schema? According to Anderson and Pearson (1998:39), it is ”an active organization of past reactions, or past experience.” Reader’s schemata comprise their prior knowledge or knowledge of the world that is stored in long-term memory. As Rumelhart (1980:33-34) explains:

Different readers have different past experiences and therefore different schemata. That is why different people, depending on factors such as reader’s age, beliefs, sex, race and culture, may comprehend the same text differently. This brings us into the next subtopic ‘The Reading Process and Schemata’.

The Reading Process and Schemata

The main rationale of reading is to discern the information in the material. Without comprehension reading would be bare. In the course of reading, "comprehension of a message entails drawing information from both the message and the internal schemata until sets are reconciled as a single schema or message" (Anderson et al. in Hudson 1982:187). It is also claimed that "the first part of a text activates a schema... which is either confirmed or disconfirmed by what follows" (Wallace 1992:33) but the process begins much earlier than this: "The environment sets up powerful expectations: we are already prepared for certain genres but not for others before we open a newspaper, a scholarly journal or the box containing some machine we have just bought." (Swales 1990:88)

The reading process, therefore, involves identification of genre, formal structure and topic, all of which activate schemata and allow readers to comprehend the text (Swales 1990:89). In this, it is assumed that readers not only possess all the relevant schemata, but also that these schemata actually are activated. Where this is not the case, then some disruption of comprehension may occur. In fact, it is likely that "there will never be a total coincidence of schemas between writer and reader" (Wallace 1992:82) such that coherence is the property of individual readers. The following section describes some of these differences in interpretation.

Schemata and Differences in Comprehension

When readers have different life experiences to the writer's 'model reader', differences in reading comprehension is most obvious between writer’s intention and reader’s comprehension. Readers sometimes also feel that they comprehend a text, but have a different interpretation to the author (Hudson 1982) Humour is particularly vulnerable to misinterpretation as was discovered when a text entitled 'It's a mugger's game in Manhattan' (Greenall and Swan 1986:197-8) was given to advanced L2 readers (Japanese). Although the text appeared humorous to the native-speaker teacher, it was found "scary" and "shocking" by the Japanese students.

As Carrell and Eisterhold (1983:80) indicate, "one of the most obvious reasons why a particular content schema may fail to exist for a reader is that the schema is culturally specific and is not part of a particular reader's cultural background." It is thought that readers' cultures can affect everything from the way readers view reading itself, the content and formal schemata they hold, right down to their understanding of individual concepts. Some key concepts may be absent in the schemata of some non-native readers (such as 'lottery' in Carrell and Eisterhold 1983:87) or they may carry alternate interpretations. The concept of 'full moon', for instance, in Europe is linked to schemata that include horror stories and madness, whereas in Japan it activates schemata for beauty and moon-viewing parties (for ordinary people not werewolves!). Some alternates may be attitudinal: 'gun' activates both shared schemata on the nature of guns and culturally distinct attitudinal attachments to those schemata (Wallace 1992:35-6).

For learners reading at the limits of their linguistic abilities, "if the topic... is outside of their experience or base of knowledge, they are adrift on an unknown sea" (Aebersold and Field 1997:41). When faced with such unfamiliar topics, some students may overcompensate for absent schemata by reading in a slow, text-bound manner; other students may overcompensate by wild guessing (Carrell 1988a:101). Both strategies inevitably result in comprehension difficulties. Research by Johnson (in Carrell and Eisterhold 1983:80) suggested that a text on a familiar topic is better recalled than a similar text on an unfamiliar topic. Swales (1990:87) believes that this and other research "supports the common sense expectancies that when content and form are familiar the texts will be relatively accessible."

Some of the applications of schema theory to the teaching of reading are summarised next.

The ESL Reading - Applications of Schema Theory

According to Carrell (1988b:245) "some students' apparent reading problems may be problems of insufficient background knowledge" . Where this is thought to be topic-related, it has been suggested that 'narrow reading' within the student's area of knowledge or interest may improve the situation (Carrell and Eisterhold 1983:86). Similarly, where schema deficiencies are culture-specific, it could be useful to provide local texts or texts, which are developed from the readers’, own experiences (op.cit.:85).

On the other hand, Carrell and Eisterhold (1983:89) also suggest "every culture-specific interference problem dealt with in the classroom presents an opportunity to build new culture-specific schemata that will be available to the EFL/ESL student outside the classroom." Thus, rather than attempting to neutralize texts, it would seem more suitable to prepare students by "helping them build background knowledge on the topic prior to reading, through appropriate pre-reading activities" (Carrell 1988b:245).

Carrell (1988b: 245) lists numerous ways in which relevant schemata may be constructed, including lectures, visual aids, demonstrations, real-life experiences, discussion, role-play, text previewing, introduction and discussion of key vocabulary, and key-word/key-concept association activities. Examples of such contextualisation include, for example, showing pictures of a city before asking the students to read a text about that city, or playing a video clip from a film adaptation of the novel the class is about to study. Although helpful, these pre-reading activities are probably not sufficient alone and teachers will need to supply additional information.

Reading problems are not just caused by schema deficiencies, but the "relevant schemata must be activated" (Carrell 1988a: 105). In other words, readers may come to a text with prior knowledge but their schemata are not necessarily activated while reading so "pre-reading activities must accomplish both goals: building new background knowledge as well as activating existing background knowledge" (Carrell 1988b:248). Particularly useful and popular here are questioning and 'brainstorming', where learners generate information on the topic based on their own experience and knowledge (Aebersold and Field 1997: 71). For example:

Example One
You are going to read a passage about a woman's encounter with a bear while hiking in an American national park.
Before reading, answer the following questions:
(a) Do bears live in the wild in your country? What kind of bears?
(b) How would you feel if you met a bear while hiking?
(c) What do you think we should do if we encounter a bear in the wild?

Previewing the text (particularly the title, subheadings and figures) also "helps readers predict what they are going to read" and this, hopefully, activates their schemata (Aebersold and Field 1997:73). For example:

Example Two

You are going to read a passage about a man's bad experience on a camping trip in the north of England.
Before reading, do the following exercises:
(a) write down five problems the man could have had when he was camping.
(b) Look at the title of the passage and the list of words. What do you think might have happened?
TITLE: 'Our Terrible New Year'
WORDS (in order): holiday, happy, drove, far, camped, beautiful, night, freezing, snow, morning, engine trouble, help, no phone, ran, ice, slipped, cut, disaster

Another relevant point is that, because lower level students may have the schemata but not the linguistic skills to discuss them in the L2, the first language could be used to access prior knowledge but teachers must introduce the relevant vocabulary during the discussion, otherwise a "schema has been activated but learning the L2 has not been facilitated" (Aebersold and Field 1997:77).

CONCLUSION

Based on the researches and studies we can pronounce that schema theory has positively influenced the teaching of reading and that pre-reading activities can improve L2 reader comprehension in many situations. Hence, it would appear astute for teachers to utilize such activities. Teachers should take the time to verify the usefulness of the activities they use and pay attention to activating the schemata of their students in order for the Schema Theory to be effective.

To conclude, basic bottom-up processing must not be disregarded and the importance of a lexico-grammatical hub predominantly in the early juncture of learning, needs to be acknowledged. L2 readers necessitate training in the skill of rapid recognition of great records of lexis and structures consecutively to attain the objective of reading extensively enough to build and expand the schemata they require for the overflowing enjoyment of the texts they read. This in return builds on the reading habit.

REFERENCE

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