Immanuel Kant (1781):“new information, new ideas, new concepts can have meaning only when they can be related to something the individual only knows.”

Anderson (1977) demonstrated the truth of Kant’s original observation with schema theory.

“Every act of comprehension involves one’s knowledge of the world as well.”

In traditional ways of teaching EFL, the emphasis is on the language to be

comprehended not on the comprehender. meaning is conceived to be in the text and

is independent from the comprehender. failures to comprehend were attributed to

listener or reader’s lack of lexical or grammatical knowledge.

HOWEVER,Schema Theory has shown the importance of background knowledge within psycholinguistic model of reading.

Goodman describes the reading as a “psycholinguistic guessing game.”

- The construction of meaning is an ongoing process of sampling , predicting, testing and confirming those predictions.

- The reader need not use all of textual cues, he picks or chooses from available information to predict a language structure.

Coady (1979) suggested a model in EFL comprehension:

- The reader’s background knowledge interacts with conceptual abilities and process strategies to produce comprehension.

- Students with a Western background learn English faster on the average than those without such a background.

Background knowledge may also compensate for certain syntactic deficiencies.

- The subject of reading material should be of high interest and relate well to the background of the reader.

- Thus, the comprehension at a reasonable rate will be enabled and keep the student involved in spite of text’s syntactic difficulty.

- Skill in reading depends on the efficient interaction between linguistic knowledge and knowledge of the world.

The role of background knowledge in language comprehension has been formalized as ‘Schema Theory.’

- Any text either spoken or written does not by itself carry meaning

- A text only provides directions for listeners or readers as to how they should construct meaning from their acquired knowledge.

“Efficient comprehension requires the ability to relate the textual material to one’s own knowledge.”

“Mary heard the ice-cream man coming down the street. She remembered her birthday money and rushed into the house…”

“… and locked the door.”

The readers activate an appropriate schema against which they try to give a text a consistent interpretation. If they are successful, they comprehend the text.

However, the reader may have a consistent interpretation for the text but the author may not intend it.

Thus, much of the meaning is not in the text, but in the reader.

A reader’s failure to activate an appropriate schema during reading results in various degrees of noncomprehension.

- The writer may have not provided the sufficient clues.

- The reader may not possess the appropriate schema anticipated by the author.

The reason why a particular schema content fails to exist is:The schema is culturally specific and is not a part of a particular reader’s background.

Second language readers attempt to provide schemata to make sense of texts, and they do so persistently.

However, these efforts will fail if the reader cannot access or does not possess the appropriate schema to understand the text.

Therefore,- Textual cues,- Language processing skillsare needed to construct comprehension.

As teachers, we should- minimize reading difficulties - maximize comprehension by providing

culturally relevant information.

Since no author can compensate for the individual variation among readers, it is the role of the teacher to supply the different cultural backgrounds. (Patricia L. Carrell)

1. for the beginning reader, (Language Experience Approach)

- the teacher should control the vocabulary, structure,

and content- students’ ideas, their own

words are used in preparing reading materials.

- the student will write their own texts and will be interested in the text.

2. “Narrow reading is more efficient for the second language acquisition.” (Krashen 1981)

- reading can be confined to a single topic or to the texts of a single author.- text becomes easier to understand- readers adjust to the repeated vocabulary of a particular topic or a particular style of a writer, which results in increased comprehension

3. Text with local settings and specialized low-frequency vocabulary.

- local newspapers, pamphlets, brochures or booklets about local places of interest. - travel guides or National Geographic type articles from the students own countries.

4. Sustained Silent Reading- silent reading of texts- students become self-directed agents seeking meaning. - student selected textsStudents select their own reading texts with respect to content, level of difficulty and length, relevant to their own experiences.

- Teachers should provide backgroundinformation and previewing content for the reader particularly for the less proficient language students.

- Less proficient students tend to have vocabulary acquisition emphasized.

- More proficient students tend to receive

content previews.

Illustrations, For low-level readers- Provide semantic content, - Present specialized vocabulary So - Ask questions with a single answer requiring no

discussion -help them relate the information to their own world

For proficient readers- help to discern the problems in comprehensionSo- Ask open-ended questions- Ask for inferences from the text- Encourage them to justify answers- Have them provide oral or written summaries

As a result,Process of identifying and dealing with

cultural interference in reading should make students more sensitive to such interference when they read on their own. (Joan C. Eisterhold)

Schemata involved in listening can be categorized into two major types: language schema and knowledge schema. (ZENG Ya-jun)

a. language schema refers to the phonological,lexical, syntactic and grammatical knowledge. W: Lots of people enjoy dancing, do you? M: Believe it or not, that is the last thing I want to do. Q: What does the man mean?

b. Knowledge schema refers to student’s common knowledge. Dialogues are about typical daily life situations at a hotel, restaurant, post office, hospital, book store, library, airport, bank…etc.

W: Gorge, look at the long waiting line. I am glad you’ve made a reservation.

M: More and more people enjoy eating out now. Beside, this place is especially popular with the overseas students.

Q: Where did the conversation most probably take place?

The key to listening comprehension lies in the activation of their stored knowledge (schemata). Teachers can easily help students achieve this through pre-reading activities.

Brainstorming Mind mapping Discussion Games Pictures Prediction Skimming

New schemata can also be built during both while-listening and post-listening periods.

Goh (2002) suggests teachers to help students build new schemata by either extending students’ existing schemata or introducing new knowledge.

HOW? multimedia presentation short written texts (ask students to write letters,

postcards, messages, diaries, dialogues, poems based on the listening text)

summaries (students summarize the whole text or a pre-selected part orally or in writing)

oral presentations (students’ short informal presentations of listening outcomes)

role play