The Paper

Reading Theory and Practice

Schema Theory

Compiled By:

Group 2

Riska Juliani (1810013121006)

Afina Ulya Taufiq (1810013121008)

Ega Fatmawati Agja (1810013121010)

Aminah (1810013121014)

ENGLISH LANGUAGE STUDY PROGRAM

FACULTY OF TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION

BUNG HATTA UNIVERSITY

2019
 Preface

First of all, thanks to Allah SWT because of the help of Allah, writer finished
writing the paper entitled “Schema Theory” right in the calculated time.

The purpose in writing this paper is to fulfill the assignment that given by Mr.
Bambang Irfani as lecturer in samantics major.

In arranging this paper, the writer trully get lots challenges and obstructions
but with help of many indiviuals, those obstructions could passed. writer also realized
there are still many mistakes in process of writing this paper.

Because of that, the writer says thank you to all individuals who helps in the
process of writing this paper. hopefully allah replies all helps and bless you all.the
writer realized tha this paper still imperfect in arrangment and the content. then the
writer hope the criticism from the readers can help the writer in perfecting the next
paper.last but not the least Hopefully, this paper can helps the readers to gain more
knowledge about samantics major.

Padang, December 28th, 2019

author
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

PREFACE...........................................................................................................................................i

TABLE OF CONTENTS...................................................................................................................ii

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of The Paper........................................................................................................................1

1.2 Purpose of The Paper................................................................................................................................2
1.3 Problem Formulation................................................................................................................................2

CHAPTER 2 THEORY AND DISCUSION

2.1 Definition of Schema Theory..................................................................................................................3

2.2 Pre-Reading...................................................................................................................................................5

2.3 During-Reading............................................................................................................................................

2.4 Post-Reading..................................................................................................................................................

CHAPTER 3 CONCLUSION

3.1 Conclusion......................................................................................................................................................

3.2 Suggest.............................................................................................................................................................

BIBLIOGRAPHY
 CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION

1.1. Background of The Paper

English reading is one of the most important courses not only middle schools but
also in colleges and universities. Reading comprehension is one of the essential abilities
required in English study and one important part in English teaching. So the improving
of the students’ reading comprehension is one of the main tasks in English teaching. In
traditional English reading classes, the students are usually assigned to preview the
new words in the passages to be studied and read the passage in the class and then
answer the questions following each of the passage. While the teachers’ task is to urge
the students to finish the reading in time and check the answers with them. Thus the
efficiency of reading is mainly on the answer-check and the comprehension purpose of
reading has been totally forgotten.
The term schema was firstly found in the works of some ancient philosophers
and psychologists. In 1800s, Immanuel Kant summarized the philosophy sense of
schema as the bridge conjoining concepts and the perceived objects. Later, it is believed
that the process of telling stories is an imaginative reconstruction of the existing
schemas and is the linking of the preexisting schemas with the new knowledge. With the
development of the study of many psychologists and linguists, many of the traditional
ideas and psychological thoughts have been absorbed and integrated into the theory of
schema in modern time and achievements in this field have been increasingly made.
According to the Schema theories, readers possess different conceptual
frameworks which they bring to the reading of a text and which they use to make sense
of what they read. Researchers argued that schemas are the general knowledge people
use to make sense of what they need. There are a variety of schemas in one’s mind. The
motivation of the schemas in a reader ’s mind helps to improve his/her reading
comprehension. Based on the researches of the application of the Schema theory to
reading, the psychologists and linguists (Carrel& Eisterhold, 1983) found that the
schema theory plays a guiding role in English reading comprehension.
1.1. Purpose of The Paper
provides directions for readers as to how they should retrieve or construct
meaning from their own previously acquired knowledge. The theory of Schema can be
used to help guide students to comprehend a text from the global point of view.
Therefore, the roles of Schema theory in comprehension cannot be ignored.

1.2. Problem Formulation

a. What is The Definition of Schema Theory?
b. What is Pre-Reading Activities?
c. What is During-Reading Activities?
d. What is Post-Reading Activities?
 CHAPTER 2
THEORY AND DISCUSION

2.1 . Definition of Schema Theory

Schema theory is a theory about knowledge. It is a theory about how knowledge
is represented and about how the representation facilitates the use of the knowledge in
particular ways.According to the schema theory, all knowledge is packed into
units,called schemata. In addition to knowledge itself, these packets of knowledge
embedded information about how this knowledge is to be used. Therefore, schemata
are used by readers to make sense of text; the printed work evokes the reader’s
experiences, as well as past and potential relationships.

The experiment result (to test whether schemas influence one’s reading
comprehension of English newspaper)shows that the teaching method of schema
activation played a great role in promoting the students’ reading comprehension, which
is mainly reflected in the following aspects:
(1) The schema method can help the students form or activate the schemas
about the reading texts in a short time and improve their reading comprehension and
thus arouse the interest of the students in the texts, which, before the formation of the
schemas or activation of the schemas, might be the fields the students know nothing
about or have no
interest in.
(2) By comparing the experiment results of the two groups, it can be found that
the main reason for the difference of the experiment results is the lack of schemas of the
text, or in another word, the lack of the background information of the text. Besides,
vocabulary is another obstacle for the students. If the students do not have the
background knowledge of the text or the clues to understand the text is not clear
enough to activate the schemas needed, they would not guess the meanings of the
words correctly. This exactly proves the first two possibilities of not understanding a
text (Rumelhart,1977), that is, without a proper schema, a reader cannot understand a
text; even with the proper schemas, a reader might fail to understand the text for the
author doesn’t provide enough clues for readers to activate the schemas that the reader
has.
A schema has some characteristics (Rummelhart, 1980, P.25).

1. It has variables.

These variables can be associated with different environment instantiations of

schema. In a schema theory,variable constraints serve two important functions. They
help the identification of various aspects of situations with the variable of the schema.
They also help by serving as “default values” or initial guesses for variable whose values
he/she has not yet observed.

For example, if he/she observes a transaction to be one of buying but does not notice
the money, he/she can infer that there is money. In this way, the schema can help
making inferences about unobserved aspects of a situation.

2. A schema needs to be instantiated.

A schema is an instantiated whenever a particular configuration of values is to a

bound to a particular moment in time. Interpreting a situation to be an instance of some
concepts involves that instantiation of an appropriate schema by associating various
variables of the schema with various aspects of situation. Such a schema is called an
instantiated schema. It is believed that the irises of instantiated schemata serve as the
basis of recollections.

3. A schema is not a complete specification of every detail of situations.

A schema allows room for irrelevant variation and creative interpretation. A schema
is not so rigidly applied that no variation is allowed. The schema only provides the
skeleton around which the situations is interpreted.

4. A schema is much more abstract than the real situation.

The buy schema is much more abstract that the actual buying event, and is
applicable to any case of buying. A schema should be viewed as consisting of a
configuration of sub-schema corresponding to the constituents of the concept being
represented.
 5. Schemata are like theories.

Schemata contain theories about the nature of reality that exist in mind. These
theories are supposed to serve in the construction of the interpretation of situation
during the process of comprehending, which is viewed as hypothesis testing. In reading,
the reader constantly evaluates hypothesis about the most possible interpretation of
texts.

6. Schemata are active processes.

Schemata are like procedures. A schema should be viewed as a procedure the

function of which is to determine whether and to what degree it accounts for the
pattern of observation. This is because schemata underlies concepts, and hence a
schema theory is both a prototype and procedural theory of meaning.

7. Schemata are like parser.

A parser is a device that determines whether a sequence of symbols forms the legal
sentence, according to the rule of grammars, and if it does, determines the constituent
structure of sentence. This means the parser determines which symbols in the sequence
correspond to which constituents of the sentence. The process of finding and verifying
appropriate schemata is a kind of parsing process that works with conceptual elements
finding constituents and sub-constituents among the data being the processed.

2.2. Pre-reading

What the learner brings to the reading will affect how she or he understands what
they read. Many people argue that it can be very important in helping the learner
understanding what they read. In other words, pre-reading activities can help learners
prepare for the reading activity.

The benefits of pre-reading

There are several benefits to doing pre-reading activities. Pre-reading activities can
help the learner to be more prepared for what they are about to read. It can help them
anticipate the topic of the reading. In doing this, they can also prepare themselves for
the kind of language, vocabulary, and even grammar that might be used in the text.
 In addition, if done in the right way, it can encourage the learners to want to read
and maybe even increase their motivation to read.

Here are 10 pre-reading activities to use in class.

1. Speed chatting

Prepare one or two simple questions related to the topic of the reading. Ask the class
to make two rows facing each other. Then, encourage your learners to ask each other
the questions, but warn them that they only have 60 seconds to do so. Once the 60
seconds are up, one of the rows rotates so each learner has a new partner. Repeat the
process several times.

2. Discussion

Encourage the learners to have a discussion about the topic of the reading. Prepare
four or five sentences with various opinions relating to the reading. Read them out to
the class and then place them around the room. Encourage the learners to go and stand
near the opinion that they agree with the most. Then encourage that group to prepare
reasons for agreeing with that particular sentence. Once they have done this, the
learners can then interact with people from other groups to share their opinions and
reasons.

3. Brainstorming

Give the class five minutes to brainstorm ideas relating to the topic of the reading.
Then give them a further five minutes to organize their ideas and to form sentences.
Once they have completed this, encourage them to get up and move around the room
and share their ideas with other learners.

4. Pictures

Select three or four pictures that relate to the topic of the reading. Ask the students
to make small groups and give each group a copy of the pictures. The learners should
work together to connect the pictures and to try to guess what the reading will be about.
Each group takes it in turns presenting their ideas.
 5. The title

Ask the students to make small groups and tell the groups the title of the reading.
The learners should work together to pool their knowledge of this topic. Again, once the
group has finished, each group can share their ideas with the other groups.

6. Story telling

Prepare a short personalized narrative about something related to the topic of the
reading. Be creative with the story. It doesn’t have to be 100% accurate to something
that actually happened to you, but it should be personal, and be told enthusiastically. It
will help if there is a little suspense and humour in the story too.

7. Short conversations

This time give the students a sentence from the reading. The students then have a
conversation with a partner about the sentence. However, tell them there is one rule.
They cannot use more than three words each time it is their turn to speak

8. Pictionary

Select some of the key words from the text. Put the class into two or three groups. In
turn, a learner from each group (at the same time) comes to the whiteboard. They are
told the word and they have to draw that word. They are not allowed to use letters or
numbers in their drawing. The other students try to guess the word and earn points for
their team. This can get very lively indeed!

9. Purpose

Give the students a purpose for completing the reading. This can be in the form of
some discussion questions about the content prepared by the teacher. Give the
questions to the students before they read the text. Ask them to read them and then
while they are reading the text, they should prepare answers to these discussion
questions. When they have read the text, they then discuss the questions with a partner.

10. Videos

There is so much good free content available these days. First, find a short video
relating to the topic of the reading. I would suggest something around three minutes
long. After watching the video yourself, prepare some simple discussion questions. Play
the video and then ask the students to talk with a partner about what they saw.

This new format suggests that 50-60% of the lesson should be spent on pre- reading
activities (the base or the largest part of the triangle).

These activities are often fun for both the teacher and student.

Sample pre-reading activities may include:

• Discussing new vocabulary and trying to attach it to something students already

know.
• Asking students what they know about the topic and from where that
information came.
• Looking at the subtitles and asking students to consider anything they know
about them.
• Examining the pictures and captions to learn more about what the text is going
to say.
• Checking the graphs and maps to discover how they might add meaning to the
text.
• Looking at the bold words.
• Analyzing who wrote the text and the audience for whom it was originally
written.
• Reading the entire first paragraph and asking students what they know about the
text.
• Reading the last paragraph and asking students what they know about the text.
• Reading the first sentence or first two lines in each paragraph and asking
students what they now know about the text.
• Asking students to write a question that they anticipate will be answered in the
text.
 2.3 During-Reading Activities

Reading is an active process and readers are not the passive receivers of text
information. So teachers should cultivate students' prediction capability in order to make
students experience how the schema plays a predictive part. It does not matter that readers
may not predict the details and that what they predict may not in accordance with the text,
since it is usually the case. The point is that the prediction can guide them to find the key
information and detect the interferential details; therefore, it is very possible that their
reading speed can be increased. It is impossible that any text provides all the details. In
many cases, authors make omissions which he or she assume readers understand. More
often, authors' intention can only be found between the lines. All this require students
develop their ability to infer information from the existed one. To achieve this, class
discussion is quite effective. Class discussions and informal talks in and out of class all serve
as techniques to discover more about what students bring to their reading. It will facilitate
students' oral communication ability in that they will be more active in class discussions. It is
best to divide students into several groups so that more students will have more chances to
speak in class. Over a period of time, teachers can begin to get some idea as to what their
students know and can adjust how much time needs to be spent on background
information.

In reading activity, it is not always necessary to read every word of a passage. Too
much time spent on individual words or corpuses can destroy ones’ understanding of a
passage. The purpose for reading sometimes determines how closely we should read.
According to Grellet (1990), the reading techniques includes, skimming, scanning, intensive
and extensive reading

1. Skimming

Skimming is a specific reading technique which is necessary for quick and efficient
reading. Once we know what our purpose is, skimming is a valuable procedure. Skimming
through a passage involves reading very fast in order to recognize main ideas and
supporting details. Although skimming should never replace careful reading, it can save time
in deciding what or what not to read, in getting the general content of a passage, and in
finding the authors’ main point without having to deal with details. Skimming is therefore a
more through activity which requires an overall view of the text and implies a definite
reading competence. Some strategies to skim include:

1. Making sure that you know what information you are looking for. Ask yourself a
question and look for a key word.
2. Moving your eyes quickly from line to line and from sentence to sentence.
3. When you think you have found what you are looking for.
4. Read slowly the part of the line or sentence that tells you what you want to know.
5. Think about the question you were trying to answer.
6. Does the information you find answer the question? If not quickly read the passage
again to look for the information you need .
7. Read the answer to the question you have asked (Wise, 1984).

2. Scanning

Skimming which is aimed to find a specific piece of information such as a number or the
answer of a question is called scanning. When scanning, we only try to locate specific
information and often we do not even follow the linearity of the passage to do so. We
simply let our eyes wonder over the text until we find what we are looking for, whether it is
a name, a data, or less specific piece of information. Scanning only means retrieving what
information is relevant to our purpose.

3. Intensive Reading

Intensive reading is the type of reading that you probably do in your English language
classes, particularly in a reading course. It’s very helpful if what you read is interesting.
However, in a reading class, all students do the same reading, so it’s possible that not
everything you read will be interesting to you. If you do intensive reading by yourself, you
should definitely read topics that appeal to you, because it’s more motivating.

Ideal reading materials for intensive reading are not long books or novels. Instead, you
should read newspaper articles, journal or magazine articles, short stories, short book
chapters, Wikipedia articles, blog posts, or materials supplied by your English teacher. These
are all much shorter than materials for extensive reading. Depending on your level of English,
you might be reading the same materials as native English speakers when you do intensive
reading.

Intensive reading materials need to be short, because the goal with this type of reading is
to understand all the language and details of what you’re reading. Intensive reading should be
more difficult for you, because you want to learn new grammar and vocabulary. If what
you’re reading is too long, you’ll quickly become very tired. You need to concentrate when
you’re doing intensive reading. Unlike extensive reading, intensive reading is not relaxing.
You probably shouldn’t do intensive reading more than 30 minutes at one time.

The best time to do intensive reading is when you’ve had enough sleep or when you’re
well rested. Otherwise, you won’t be able to focus. You need lots of mental energy to do
intensive reading.

When you do intensive reading in a class, there are often many tasks you may be required
to do. You may have to preview the text. You may have to discuss the topic a little before
you start reading. You may have to answer comprehension questions. To answer these
questions, you’ll have to skim the text to find the main ideas, and scan the text to find specific
information. You may have to paraphrase and summarize parts of the text. You might have to
put events into chronological order. You may to do fill-in-the-blank or matching activities.
You may have to create your own sentences with new language. Finally, you may have to
discuss the contents after you read.

4. Extensive Reading

Extensive reading is reading longer texts, usually for ones’ own pleasure. This is a fluency
activity, mainly involving global understanding. Extensive reading is needed to activate
reading out of class. Nuttall (1985) also stated that extensive reading is an out of school
work. Class time is always in short supply and the amount of reading needed to achieve
fluency and efficiency is very great, much greater than most students will undertake it left to
them. In addition, Nuttall (1985) considered that the materials for extensive reading should
be appealing, easy, short and varied. Extensive reading can be provided to students who
have not acquired the reading habit and often daunted by books. Moreover, as there is no
absolute divide between intensive and extensive reading, the same text can usefully be
employed for training in both, key passage from it being used for intensive study and in turn
illuminating the book as a whole.
2.4 Post-Reading Activities

Post-reading activities are simply activities done after during-reading activities are
completed. At this stage the students are in a temporary change of state or condition, that is,
they now know something they did not know before. They know some new vocabulary items,
some new sentence structures, some new idiomatic expressions, and they have new
knowledge about a certain topic and more important post reading activitis tells about
meaningful experience and feelings about issues and situations and make sure deepens
understanding. Post-reading activities help students understand texts further, through
critically analyzing what they have read and these are carried out after you have implemented
successfully Pre-Reading Activities and While-Reading Activities.

Post-reading Activities Focusing on Listening

1. Identifying differences the students listen to the teacher reading a text with some
changes. Initially, this is an individual activity. Then, in pairs students discuss their
findings. This activity is ended after class reports from groups of four, each reporting
one change. As a variation, the reporting can be done competitively by assigning two
groups to write the changes on the board with a time limit.

2. Add-on Information: The entire class adds to existing information in this exercise.
Student 1 recalls a piece of information. Student 2 repeats that information and adds
another piece of information. Student 3 repeats what was given by 1 and 2 and adds a
third piece of information. This continues until all the students have had an
opportunity to contribute. Note: The add-on information does not have to follow the
sequence in the text.

Post-reading Activities Focusing on Speaking

Students are likely to understand more when they discuss with each other what they have
learned, so they must have special opportunities to orally discuss their opinions, feelings, and
conclusions, from their reading activity. Some of the ways to do this include the following
activities.

1. TV reporters Students can pretend to be television re-porters with two minutes to

sum up the highlights of the "story." They work in small groups to decide on the
highlights which are written as news prompt on a laptop or a large piece of paper
put on a stand.
2. Main ideas list students list the five (or more) main ideas of the text beginning with
the most important to the least (not following the order in the text). This can be
done in a Round Robin type of activity, in which each student is a group of 4-5
students takes turn saying one main idea.
 3. Teacher-absent student A student becomes the "teacher" and ex-plains what was
covered in class with a student who was absent. This is a good and meaningful
activity because the students are trained to decide important aspects of a lesson.
The activity may be-come really entertaining when the teacher plays a role of a real
teacher the class know.
4. Debate The students can take specific sides of a topic and debate an issue.
Depending on the levels of students, the activity can range from the students just
mentioning likes and dislike to a real debate activity.
5. Hot Seat One student becomes the writer of a text or a character in a text,
answering the class questions. The questions can be creative, whose answers are
not found.

Post-Reading Activities Focusing on Writing

1. Story Innovation Students are assigned to create a story based on any part of the
text. For example, after reading the Boy Who Cried Wolf, the students had to
write a story based on the part when the villagers were tricked for the first time.
One created story was: The villagers were angry. Mrs. Doubt fire scolded the boy,
You naughty boy you made me spill my delicious vegetable soup. Shame on you!
She went back home and had to make the soup all over again. (Class work, 2009).

2. Innovation on the ending Students change the ending of a story. For example,
after reading The Boy Who Cried Wolf, whose ending was a wolf really came and
ate some of the boys sheep, a student wrote, The wolf ate the boy. So, the villagers
lived peacefully and happily ever after.(By: Riza, 2010).

3. Readers theatre Students create a short play based on the text. The teacher,
however, should re-mind the students not to overdo the preparation. With young
learners, lots of movements in place of words can be done. With older students, an
impromptu short skit or a short play taking a five-minute preparation would
suffice.

4. Wanted posters Students create wanted posters of a character in the text. For the
Princess and the Pea, for example, the poster would be pictures of princesses and
description of an ideal princess.

Examples of Post-Reading Activities

1. Creative Writing

Ask students to choose 10-15 words from the text. You can provide categories for
the words e.g. the most interesting words / the most important words. Students then write
a text using the words. This text could be a story, poem or newsreport.
 2. Areas of Interest

Ask students to say which part of the text is the most important/interesting and
which part is not interesting or important.

3. Creative Discussions

Prepare four or five simple questions and ask students to talk about those question
for 3 minutes and after that ask one member of each pair to go and talk to another person
of the group.

4. Quiz Your Classmates

Ask your students to prepare 5 questions about what they read, once they have
them ready, you can tell the students to make groups of 4 and then they can ask those
questions to each other.

5. Finding Related News

After students have finished reading, they can browse on the internet for a new
related to something they read, for example: if they read something about moral and
values, they can find examples of altruism on the web and they can share that
information with their classmates.

6. Prepare a Survey

Students can prepare a survey about the information they just read, using again the
example of the moral and values reading, students can prepare questions such as:

1. What would you do if you found a wallet near to your house?

2. What would you do if you found a five dollars bill in the classroom?

They can prepare the survey in class and ask the survey to their classmates or they
can go home and bring the results and report them during next class.

7. Parts of the Speech

Ask students to spot the different parts of the speech from the reading, then they
quiz their classmates asking questions such as:

Why type of word is moral? How would you use that word in a sentence?

If you need to know more about the parts of the speech in preparation for the class. The
Parts of the Speech website can help you with that.
 8. Questions from Pictures

Teachers shows a collage and ask student to look at the collage carefully and how
some of the pictures relate to the reading they did.

9. Character Analysis

If you read a story, there must be one or two characters involved, analyze those
characters and prepare a set of question that you would like to make them.When all
classmates have prepared their questions, ask them to give you their answers and then as a
group try to answer the questions.

10. A Graphic organizer

(also known as a concept map or mind map) is usually a one-page form with blank
areas for learners to complete with ideas and information which are connected in some
way.’

Follow Up post reading

Create a picture Packet for your favorite book. And then explain why you chose each
picture.
 CHAPTER 3
CONCLUSION

In conclusion, the success of instructional programs depends on the teaching-

learning process in the classroom. In teaching of reading the teachers’ beliefs about
reading are very essential. The mastery of strategies and techniques will facilitate
teachers to implement their programs. In executing the teaching in the classroom,
teachers can apply bottom-up, top-down and interactive strategies in order that the
students can understand the text read.
Although the study has proved the guiding function of the schemas, there are still
deficiencies in the experiment. For example, the design of the questions and the
arrangement of the class teaching are only on the superficial level; further study about
the influence of the formal schemas on reading needs to be done. However, this teaching
method utilizing schema theory has broken through the traditional teacher-centered
approach with which the teachers explain the words and grammar while the students
are in a negative position only listening to the teachers and has placed the teachers in an
auxiliary guiding position.
BIBLIOGRAPHY

http://journal.uinjkt.ac.id/index.php/ijee/article/view/1192/1071

Theory and Practice in Language Studies, Vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 441-445, February 2014
© 2014 ACADEMY PUBLISHER Manufactured in Finland

http://journal.uinjkt.ac.id/index.php/ijee/article/viewFile/1192/1071

https://www.academia.edu/8867081/The_effects_of_cultural_schema_and_reading_activities_on_r
eading_comprehension