Discussion question based on handout "The importance of Context and Background Knowledge in the Comprehension Process: Some Theoretical Considerations"
Question: How can schema theory benefit reading and listening activities in the English classroom?
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According to Widdowson, schema theory is the process by which learners blend their own background knowledge with the new information given in order to understand that text. Considering this, I would say that it is quite useful for learners because they can identify some some aspects of what they are reading or listening with the already stored knowledge about that same topic, making a combination of both pieces of information that allows a better comprehension, and the recently acquired knowledge will become background knowledge in the future, aiding learners. Besides and as a side effect, students overall gain more information and perhaps feel attracted towards additional reading/listening.
ReplyDeleteAs a personal thought, This learning theory showed us knowledge as an oraganize set of mental structures which reflects one's understanding of the world. For that reason Schema theory is useful in reading and listening activities, because in the pre-listening activities you have to apply some of background knowledge to understand the activity in a complete way. But the usage of background knowledge is not only regarded to pre-listening activities, because during the task you can use that stored knowledge as a referent to understand new concepts, ideas or even vocabulary.
ReplyDeleteAccording to Widdowson also, the usage of Schema Theory provide us a rich mix between old and new information, which is considerably a good element to understand and digest a random text. this is a circular proccess, because you store new information and also you acquire new data as a never ending history, for that reason you own brain started to organized and label those data (Schemata)in different "types" to provide us a interesting framework to future understanding proccesses, some Schematas are achetypes, or the common and in some cases annoying stereotypes. as you can see the implementation of Schema Theory is not only a good element to apply inside a classroom, also outside of it.
In the year 1977, Rumelhart defined schema as an abstract representation of a generic concept for an object, event, or situation.
ReplyDeleteSchema theory (proposed by Carrel and Eisterhold in the year 1983) is very important because it benefits listeners and readers to construct a representation from what they are listening or reading. According to this theory a text can provide direction for a listener or a reader, so they can form a meaning from their own cognitive structure (previous knowledge).
In my opinion background knowledge is a significant point because it permits a reader or a listener can comprehend what they are listening or reading. It is very important to mention that a person can understand certain things according to what he has in his mind. When two people are listening or reading the term “flower”, both of them can obtain in their minds a different representation of the same term, so they can think in different types of flowers.
Tania Figueroa Castro
Schema theory is a benefit to listening and reading activities.It is very important to teach general knowledge and generic concepts.
ReplyDeleteMany of learner's difficulties can be labelled as insufficient general knowledge situations. English Teachers must help learners to build schemata and make connections between past and previous knowledge.
Discussion, songs, and explanations of how a piece of knowledge applies are some of the techniques used to strengthen bonds between old and new information.
Prior knowledge is essential for the comprehension of new information, especially in reading and listening activities which is a constant construction of schemata, to make the dynamic fluid and understandable. Because you need to understand what you are doing and Schema theory and let us understand that, using our stored knowledge.
Fran Castro!
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ReplyDeleteFirst of all, Schema Theory was proposed by Carrel and Eisterhold in 1983. This theory is very important because it provides direction for listeners and readers. Consequently, they can construct meaning from their own cognitive structure which was previously acquired “background knowledge”. In other words, listeners and readers are going to make a representation from what they have listened or read.
ReplyDeleteFor example, in the case of reading comprehension, Schema theory holds that comprehending a text involves an interaction between the text itself and the reader´s background knowledge. In this case the comprehension requires more than linguistic knowledge. As teachers we can choose texts that will match the cultural schemata and background knowledge of our English-language learners.
I considerered that background knowledge is an important point that benefits reading and listening comprehension activities because students can understand what they are reading or listening. Therefore, they are going to use their brains in order to organize and mix the new information with the old one that they had acquired before. To conclude I want to mention and support the Victor´s conclusion that “the implementation of Schema Theory is not only a good element to apply inside a classroom, also outside of it”.
Cecilia Alarcón Rojas
According to Carrel and Eisterhold (1983), background knowledge plays an important role in language comprehension. This role is explained in their Schema theory, which proposes that oral and written texts do not have meaning on themselves and that the students are the ones who construct the meaning of such texts from their previous knowledge or schemata. Also, it states that when the learner interprets the message, he or she utilizes bottom-up and top-down processing. Therefore, this theory provides us valuable insights on how to teach listening and reading activities. It helps us organize reading and listening activities based on students’ previous background in order for them to comprehend the texts better. Besides, this theory suggests us to create activities in which the students can develop both bottom-up and top-down strategies. That is, strategies through which the students look for specific and general information respectively and relate this information with their previous knowledge in order to understand the texts.
ReplyDeleteAccording to Carrel and Eisterhold, Schema Theory gives some direction which helps to readers or listeners to construct meaning from their background knowledge which has an essential function in language comprehension. Therefore, I think this theory could be very useful for students’ understanding of what they are listening and reading; since through the knowledge or information that they already have about some situations, concepts or objects, they are going to be able to understand better the new information. So, it is produced, in a certain extent, an instantaneous connection between new and background knowledge, and it is fundamental because of, as Hudson points out, comprehension depends not only on the processing of words but also depends on the relation between meaning of the message and the schema that someone already has in mind.
ReplyDeleteFinally, I can say that for teaching in general, prior or background knowledge is always important since it provides the bases on what new knowledge is placed; and as teachers, we could take great advantage from it, especially, during the lesson planning.
many researchers have been discussiong the concept of schema theory during years. One of those definiton is "an abstract representation of a generic concept for an object, event, or situation" by Rumelhart in 1977. Thus, we can see that schema theory refers to the previous knowledge and experiences about a concept in our brains that it can be very positive in order to help us to receive new knowledge and analyze our environment focusing on own indicidual's minds because each person can have a different concept or background knowledge about a topic, concept and situation. it is for that reason, that our backgrpund knowledge plays an important role in our performance as a students of a second language principally in the development of our english skills as listening comprehension as reading comprehension because schema theory with the use of the background knowledge help us to understand in a better way every single listening and readind activity that we do, seeing that acccording to the definition of Rumelhart we are able to create a kind of represention of a thing or concept. So, we can made a kind of representation of what we read and listen depending on our prior knowledge or backgrouund knowledge. This special factor can be cery important in our process as a future teacher as a student, seeing that we do a outstanding connection between our prior knowledge and new knowledge that we receive from the reading and types of listening. We can take many advantages from this fndamental key in order to create lesson in which students will be willing to learn and receive knowledge for being connected with the previous one n order to do their normal comprehension into a procifiency comprehension using resources such as: texts focused in the real life,, culture, , arts, and teenagers histories, but the most fundamental point is to promote reading and the use of techniques of reading for better comprehension such as top down and button up that both are focused in different aspect that we already know. Based on listening comprehension teachers can use videos about,cultural topics, karaokes, songs, among others. those activities should be motivated to the students for they will be able to connect and receive the new knowledge in oorder to get a meaning learning because our stored brains have to be effective and permanent.
ReplyDeleteas a final comment, background knowledge is the key in the comprehension of skills because help us to learn( new knowledge) and practice (background knowledge)in different contexts and environment . Classroom activities could be more specific and to bring additional information and to support our personal views and ideas in to get a better command of the second language.
Schema theory can benefit reading and listening activities enormously because students use their previous knowledge to comprehend information from texts or audio materials which are not meaningful by themselves. The information become meaningful when students made connections between what they already know and what they read or listen, creating their “own understanding and learning” (since every one has different experiences and knowledge). As a teacher, to know the context is very important since such factor will influence in the previous decisions of choosing and implementing proper listening or reading activities in an English classroom. Also, to promote students to use their previous knowledge will permit them to develop different processes (top down process and bottom up process) involve in language comprehension. Therefore, comprehension goes beyond what we think, that is, it requires fitting the meaning of the message to the schema that one has in mind (Hudson)
ReplyDeleteSchema theory is a wonderful and helpful way which students can learn and improve their abilities in learning and listening. Learners will feel motivated and enthusiastic using their previous knowledge since they are not going to be unconnected with the context and materials gave by the teacher. However, students have to know that it is not only necessary to have aprior knowledge but also they need to recognize the global "image" that it is happening in a determinated space, context, and so forth. If students do that they will success in performing cognitive associations in order to interpret the message. Moreover, materials that are recognized by students is crucial in developing listening and reading skills since students will feel interested working with them and will not feel that are using tools no identified by them. I say this due to students have to know the things they are using (independently if the tools work or nor)to encourage and stimulate their learning. Finally, the relationship between bottom-up and top-down has to be used depending on the learners background so that learners will know more about people, culture, the world, and something which is fundamental nowadays, the discourse.
ReplyDeleteA schema is a hypothetical mental structure for representing generic concepts stored in memory. We acquire it when new concepts are assimilated into existing schemata which can be altered or expanded. If we have no idea about something, new knowledge builds up new schemata. Schemata is created by our experiences in the world. Consecuently, it’s directly connected with our background knowledge. For these reasons, pre-listening/reading activities are very important, because they should be used for activating and constructing such background knowledge. It motivates the students to want to read/listen the assignment and to prepare them to be able to read/listen it. It’s a good help for teachers and students, due to we know if a student is not motivated in learn something, it would be more difficult to reach the activity goals.
ReplyDeleteJosé Barrios Barrios
We organize knowledge in a set of mental representations that reflect our understanding of the world. Those mental representations are called schema. This theory suggests that we understand new experiences by activating the mental representations of previous knowledge. It helps to interpret new experiences quickly. We also are able to adjust our understanding to new experiences. Bartlett that proposed the schema theory observed that.
ReplyDeleteThe importance of context and background points out to the importance of schema to language teaching because can help explain comprehension problems and explain the phenomena in the production and processing in language. Also, this theory provides an excellent combination between previous and present information. Mainly, it links to the importance of developing cultural knowledge in students. Even though, it can be restrictive. When we pay less attention to minor details, it is allowing us to process communication fast. (Cook, 1994)
As teachers we need to have present that every student have lived different experiences that influence and affect their new knowledge. When we teach something we need to make connections between old and new information to make the process of learning easier and meaningful. In this way students continue building knowledge above what they already know.
Background benefits listening and reading, it helps to understand better. So comprehension requires more than linguistic components.
According to Carrel and Eisterhold (1983) the background knowledge in language comprehension is very important. One of the basic tenets of the Schema Theory is that words don’t have meaning on themselves, but it provides direction for listeners or readers so that they can construct meaning from their own cognitive structure. Besides, the use of Bottom- up and Top- down processing is important in order to interpret the message.
ReplyDeleteFor example: when students apply listening and reading activities, they use the prior knowledge (old information) to understand new information, and at the same time their minds create new information (contents).
So, each student will be different interpretation of a message, depending on his or her personal experiences, interest, cultural background, preconceived ideas etc.
Mara Lopez Castañeda
Schema theory could become really important not only for reading and listening, but also for all the linguistics abilities.However, according to reading and listening,the schema theory is essential and useful to be applied in any class, due to the fact that teachers should be able to provide some cues in pre-listening and reading activities through some pictures,images, etc.The main point is to make the listening and reading comprehensible and easier to children. For that reason,in those types of activities teachers can support their methodologies, thoughts, ideas and beliefs in their students´background knowledge to make the topics and subjects more meaningful for them.
ReplyDeleteLuis Campos
Schema theory helps students to construct meaning through their own experience and according to Rumelhart, everyone posses and specific perception of something due to the students background. Hudson suggests that the listener would construct a relation between the activated schema and the actual information.
ReplyDeleteIt is said that bottom up and top down processes occur at the same time. Carrel and Eisterhold argue that bottom up predispose students to a situation and in the other hand, top down helps student to solve ambiguities and be selective in the text.
So the Formal and Content Schemata would benefit students to the comprehension of different texts, guiding and respecting individual’s interpretations of them.
Schema Theory can always benefit us since people have schemata for everything they experience; schemata are quite active and they are constantly modifying themselves. In the case of the benefit they provide in reading and listening activities inside the classroom, I would say that once readers transact with text or audio they are changed or transformed. Every single person has different interpretations for the actual utterances because all of us have developed different background knowledge because of our experience, and we need to use it in order to understand the information we are dealing with by associating it with what we already have stored in our competence. It is very useful for both listening and reading comprehension. It is very important that students understand that the use of background knowledge can not only affect the way in which pieces of information are interpreted, but also continue to change as new information is received. In general, our schemata represent our knowledge, so when students get involved in reading and listening activities they necessarily need to use their schemata for them to understand the actual information, and also to store the new information by reshaping and making it meaningful.
ReplyDeleteMayra Flores Riveros
When presenting content based on a reading or a listening, the teacher might consider students’ background. Otherwise, the teacher will not catch students’ attention enough due to students not feel identified with the topic. If a topic is just presented without taking care learners previous knowledge about world topic such as War World II, that can be very boring because not all of them feel interesting about that issue, but if they are asked previously what they understand by war, which vision does they have, agree or disagree with war; the topic becomes more interesting.
ReplyDeleteNow, according to Carrell and Eisterhold “text does not carry meaning in and of itself”; in other terms, all depend on background how a text can be comprehended.
The idea is to go cross from top down processing (general view based on previous knowledge) to bottom up processing (specific details about the message).
Thus, schema theory gives benefit to both part learner and teacher in order to get a better comprehension of a reading or a listening activity. Besides, it helps to bring up proficiency learners. If we start from bottom up to top down, students can get confused, generating lack of interest to learn a second language.
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ReplyDeleteSchema Theory plays a vital role in reading and listening activities because it involves two processing for understand the message, I mean bottom-up and top-down processing. We as teachers tend to think that our students heard and read every single word before they understand the meaning of the message, but that is not true. Actually, they are predicting the main idea in order to comprehend the message and to do that they have to use their background knowledge. As Ji Lingzhu wrote in his article called "Listening Activities for Effective Top-down Processing", the readers must relate textual materials to their background knowledge, so that the new input from a reading passage is mapped against some prior schema. All aspects of the previously existing schema must be compatible with the new input from the text. So, in terms of understanding messages in classroom, students have to apply their previous knowledge for creating new meanings.
ReplyDeleteMaría José Acevedo
Schema theory is useful for learners in listening and Reading activities because when they work with a text or audio material they have to apply their background knowledge about the topic of the text or audio that they are using. The use of background knowledge in a schemata permit that students comprehend better the reading or listening tasks. Also, is important that learners understand that this previous knowledge helps them to comprehend new information that they will receive.
ReplyDeleteRumelhart suggested that schema theory has two processing: bottom-up and top-down processing, this author describe the method is an interactive model of comprehension. Both processing helps students in listening and reading activities; bottom-up ensures learners to become sensitive to information about the content and structure of the text; on the other hand, top-down helps students to resolve ambiguities in the interpretation of the incoming data.
In my opinion, this theory is useful in order to achieve the development of the comprehension process in our students not only in the classroom activities but also outside of it.
Margarita Ahumada
In the journey of learning a second language meaningful materials become crucial to success. This belief is supported by Ausbel who says that in order to have an effective knowledge, in this case English language knowledge, which stays with us we need to be exposed to a meaningful materials or activities. But, what meaningful materials imply? One of the principal characteristics of meaningfulness is that the new material the students are learning must be connected to previous knowledge that students already possess. This background knowledge is known as the Schema theory.
ReplyDeleteIn a class activity it does not matter the type of text or the recording they are working on this just gives the “directions” for the students so that they construct meaning of that material from their own background (experiences, interests, world conceptions). So the interpretation of a piece of writing or a recording will be strongly influenced for the schema the students have. I can not imagine a successful class without including background knowledge. It is easier for students and for everyone to understand something using what we already know what we have stored in our minds. If the listening and reading activities have the meaningfulness and the background knowledge the students learning will have a “sense” a purpose so it will be successful.
First of all we have to know what Schema Theory means. According to Carrell and Eisterhold schema theory provides direction for listeners and readers. They can construct meaning from their own cognitive structure which is the background knowledge.
ReplyDeleteSchema Theory can help listening activities and reading activities a lot for the reason that the knowledge what we already have stored in our competence help to understand the message because you can relate the previous knowledge and the new one.
The background knowledge has an important function in the pre-listening because the students have to activate what they already know about the ideas they are going to hear, so the students can associate what they understand in an easy way with what they heard, the new information. The same happens with the pre-reading activities, they can connect the previous knowledge with the actual knowledge. When they associate both, they create a new knowledge that is stored in their competence.
In my opinion, the schema is very useful in the teaching and reading activities because it helps an easier comprehension of the message.
Carolina Faundes
Section 1
In 1983, Carrel and Eisterhold stated a new term, the Schema Theory which explains the use of the background knowledge, stored in our cognitive system, to build up the meaning that a text has.
ReplyDeleteThe use of the schemata that everyone has, is an important tool in listening and reading activities because it activates the previous knowledge about the topic of a text.
Using schemata, all the activities will become meaningful because students will relate directly the knowledge they have of an especific topic to the text they are reading or listening to.
Rumelhart, in 1977, defined the schemata as "an abstract representation of a generic concept for an object, event or situation"; concept that brings many benefits to the students because it means that all students have different ideas of a concept, so in an activity they will share those different concepts to explain what they understand from the text given.
Schema theory (Carrel and Eisterhold) plays an important role during class activities. It obviously benefits the way students learn because of the associations they make when they attempt to give meaning to a text or a recording.
ReplyDeleteIt is not a matter of understanding an article or a recording by just reading or listening it; the students’ role go beyond. For example, students have to construct meaning by associating the new information with the old one which they have stored in their background knowledge. As Carrel and Eisterhold mentioned, the text does not carry meaning in and of itself, there is a process of interaction between the text and the reader/listener who gives sense to the concepts or information.
By having this concept clear I think that if we, as future teachers, help our students to find the right schema we will be reminding them of the information they already know and handle before teaching them new material; as well as their schema will be growing and changing as new concepts or information are acquired, here I include the concept of meaningfulness which appears once again under the importance of the role of previous knowledge.
Paula Adasme Alvarez
The background knowledge of the learner plays an important role in the process of listening and reading, yet the value of the meaning comprehension of the text is giving by the learner because the words do not have a meaning by themselves. According to Bartlett (1932), the role that has the previous knowledge related to a complete comprehension of the listening and reading process is vital on the memory and perception.
ReplyDeleteIn order to get a complete idea of the Schema Theory based on reading and listening procedures is necessary to define some basic concepts. The term of schema was defined as “an abstract representation of a generic concept…” and the term of script rests on the idea of “a structure that describes in a predetermined, stereotypic fashion appropriate sequences of events in a particular context. Therefore in order to get a complete comprehension of the both oral and written text is necessary to put in order the whole aspects that are in the discourse. Having a schema is just the first step, yet we need to get an agree both context and a specific and a predetermined discourse in a particular context. Comprehension, is not only to process the message, but requires to fitting the message to a concrete schema that one has in mind.
Roberto Apablaza Contreras B.
Schema theory takes into account how much important is the students' background knowledge, in terms of how they can construct meaning based on their own experiences.
ReplyDeleteAs Carrel and Eisterhold pointed out, texts don't carry meaning by themselves, so every single student can hold their own view about a general topic (schema).
Listening and reading activities can success if they target to meaningful learnings. In this way, bottom up and top down processing can be very useful in achieveng a better level of comprehension: "Bottom-up processing ensures that the listeners/readers will be sensitive to information that is novel or that does not fit their ongoing hypothesis about the content or structure of the text; top-down processing helps the listeners/readers to resolve ambiguities or to select between alternative possible interpretations of the incoming data" (Carrel and Eisterhold 1983, p.557)
Sofia Herrera Escobar
Section 2
This theory is essential for setting up one's knowledge. In fact, this particular way of doing learning encourage the overlapping of knowledges. As Carrel and Eisterhold state the lerners can benefit for the Schema Theory because of the relationship they make with the background knowledge for constructing the knew one. This theory may also be related to Vigotsky's Zone of Proximal Development in which the student do construct the new knowledge taking an advantage of the older one. Thus Schema Theory helps learners through the interaction of what is internalized with what would be internalized. As a result many activities planning have changed so as to include pre-listening/reading activities and post-listening and reading activities as well, which certainly enhance students habilities, competence, performance and so on.Personally I would say that the gubernamental issues (educational planning)have Took care about this viewpont by recomending this type of activities in the classrooms.
ReplyDeleteAs we have already seen on the readings, we can realize that schemata helps us to provide "direction" for listeners or readers so that they can construct meaning from their own cognitive knowledge structures accessed in the comprehension process. (Carrell and Eisterhod 1983). According to this theory, we can encourage students to be more proficient in terms on understanding a text, or activity as well in listening and reading.
ReplyDeleteIn classroom, there are many alternative to encourage students to complete certain tasks, which involve also the use of schemata theory; for example in reading: top-down proccessing or before reading a text a preview. In listening activities could be, for example, to ask students about what they know of a certain topic, among others.
In conclusion, thanks to schema theory students can apply their background knowledge when they learn and for this reason, all the learning process becomes meaningful.
Camila Gutiérrez
Section 1
Schema theory is a process that hlps us to use background knowedge in order to get new contents, this allow us to make the learning process meaningful. It is useful in classroom situations becuase when we see or think of a concept a mental schema is activated in order to bring to mind other information that is linked to the background information by association. In this case is usefu when readers use the two process involved in the schema theory the top-down and the bottom-up and this is useful also to the listeners.
ReplyDeleteas we know from handouts about listening and reading, Carrel and Eisterhold says that this theory provides a direction in a way listeners or readers can construct the meaning for a whole new theme they do not know at all, so in this way the usefulness this theory has, support a better understanding of what it is trying to process by readers.
ReplyDeletetaking into account that words, phrases or sentences in themselves do not carry any meaning to the actual comunication but the way everybody
give it a similar meaning by the use of backgroung knowledge they have, allows the understanding of people. this tool for students in an english classroom gives them the chance of getting an idea of the treatened conversation topic when englsh structures or words are unkown, permitting your life previous experinces helping in this process.
As all of us know, background knowledge is the information that learners have in their brain which is obtained by emotions, experiences, culture and many other issues; it is also called schemata.
ReplyDeleteThere are two forms of schemata: content and formal schemata. "Content schemata includes what we know about the word, people, culture, and the universe. On the other hand, formal schemata is our knowledge of formal discourse. Both ones help us to uderstand and define different situations or context. In fact, it is very important to teach and know how to differentiate contexts because if we know in what context we are, we can chose the type of speech and utterances we need to use and the meaning that any phrase has in a certain context.
So, if we and our future students have a well-developed background, we will have the possibility to comunicate correctly in different situations without having misunderstandings. In other word, the knowledge of the context is an important tool that help us to use the correct language and utterances depending the situation.
First of all, just for add an extra information, I would like to say that I was looking for more information about schema theory and I found that not just Carrell and Eisterhod suggest the schema theory (1983), before them Sir Frederic Bartlett in 1932 refered to the term "Schema" as an organized structure of knowledge consisting of past experiences in our long term memory.
ReplyDeleteAccording to how schema theory benefit listening and reading, I would like to say that we all know what schema theory consist of, so I want to mention and point out that the main function of schema theory is to enhance the comprehension of listening and reading. For instance, listeners and readers can relate information previusly stored in their minds, they recognize that information and use it to creating new information improving in this way their own knowledge and developing their L2 learning.
Furthermore it is important to say that teachers have to choose accurate activities in order to contribute to the development of schemata in students learning.
Camilo Quezada.
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ReplyDeleteThis learning theory views organized knowledge as an elaborate group of abstract mental structures which represent a personal understanding of the world. In education, It has focused attention on the role old knowledge plays in acquiring new knowledge, and has emphasized the role of top-down, reader-based influences in the reading process.
ReplyDeleteSchema theory benefits reading and listening process because reading and listening skills are based on background knowledge. According to Anderson, “The schema-theory approaches to reading emphasize that reading involves both the bottom-up information from the perceived letters coming into the eye and the use of top-down knowledge to construct a meaningful representation of the content of the text”. That means that the reader involves a full process in which Schemata grow and change as new information is acquired .in both skills, Listening and reading, the readers looks for previous concepts in order to get a clear image of it.
In order to use schemata in class, the teacher have to teach general knowledge and generic concepts. For this, teacher must help learners build schemata and make connections between ideas. Discussion, songs, role play, illustrations, visual aids, and explanations of how a piece of knowledge applies are some of the techniques used to strengthen connections. Because the general knowledge, on this case, provides a framework into which the recent formed structure can be fixed.
Luis Alvarez F.
As all of you know, culture and background are not the same for all students of a classroom. So, teacher must be the artist who combine different activities to get a good botton-up and top down processing (Rumelhart 1980) in the students. If the teacher can obtain that, the students, through the Schema Theory, will enhance reading or listening with the visual or listening material complemented with the background stored by the students. According with Frank Smith (1980) the backgroung or schema in the students’ mind, listening or reading material will have sense.
ReplyDeleteSo Schema theory helps to students to use their background and to improve their analytic abilities.
Sherezada Ruz
First of all, I would say that schema theory is based on the prior knowledge, background information or schemata. The prior knowledge make the person both connects the previous information with the new one and give him/her directions to facilitate the comprehension of that (that is similar to the scaffolding process).
ReplyDeleteOn the one hand the schema theory has emphasized in reading both "(a) the constructive nature of comprehension and (b) the crucial role of the reader's prior knowledge in that construction" (Sadoski, Paivio, and Goetz, 1991, p. 465), facilitating the process of comprehension and making the students feel more engaged and motivated with reading activities. The more background information the student has about the reading topic, the more and better comprehension he/she can get from the written text.
On the other hand, listeners are expected to combine their prior knowledge and experiences with the text they are hearing to in order to comprehend it well. If the teacher activates the students’ prior knowledge, the tasks can be carried out much easier, so as a consequence and the students can feel more motivated and learn more in less time.
Summing up, the schema theory is directly related to learners’ information backgrounds and the ways they assimilate that prior information to the new one, facilitating the comprehension of texts and making the learning processes (in this case listening and reading) easier.
Considering that every student has his/her own previous knowledge about the topic presented in the class, the schema theory provides useful strategies related to how language can be taught. It is important to be aware, as teachers what type of activities are appropriate in order to apply them during the class. Also, we have to guarantee that the activities can work in a good way, so students need to know a general view about the context before the development of reading and listening activities. In addition to this, teachers have to activate learner’s prior knowledge for new knowledge, and make connections between ideas. Teachers have to select meaningful material and encourage the use of all tools available inside and outside the class to facilitate the development of reading and listening skills successfully.
ReplyDeleteIsrael Navarrete O.
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ReplyDeletePersonally, I think that theory shows something quite obvious... I mean, it is highly important that every student in a classroom share some conceptions, concepts, and perceptions about the reality [world, culture] they're living in, so they learn towards a same direction.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, to answer the question itself.. it is helpful that students enrich their learning process with their previous knowledge in a way that the learning itself is more complete.
And as a last thought, I think this theory also prove that every student can bring something to the other students' learning [even if is a reading or a listening activity].
karime carrasco