The Relationship between L2 Reading Comprehensionand Schema Theory: A Matter of Text Familiarity

Abstract

Readers construct meaning from clues found in a text which is related to the use of background knowledge in understanding the content of the passage. Reading is an interactive process in which readers construct a meaningful representation of text using their schemata. Schema theory describes the process by which readers combine their own background knowledge with the information in a text to comprehend that text. All readers carry different schemata (background information). This is an important concept in EFL teaching and reading tasks are designed to activate the learners' schemata. While it has been known for some time that both content and formal schemata are necessary for a complete understanding of written texts in a reader's first language (L1), and has been suspected to be true in a reader's second language (L2), it is still an area that has been ignored by both researchers and classroom teachers. The first goal of this paper is to define the terms reading, reading comprehension, schema, schema theory. The second goal is to review the nature of second language reading. The third goal is to discuss reading activities. The fourth goal is to review research on text familiarity and reading comprehension. The fifth goal is to give a brief overview of some of the literature that deals with schema theory as part of a reader centered psycholinguistic processing model for both native and nonnative readers. The sixth goal is related to the analysis of content schema and its role in L1 L2 reading comprehension. The seventh goal is pertinent to the activation of content schema. The last goal is to discuss the situation of schema theory in EFL reading comprehension, and implications of schema theory in L2 classrooms.

Investigating English Reading Comprehension Problems of Cambodian High School Students

“…Chung, 2011;Nongnat.Ch, 2008;Pangsapa. N, 2012;Gilakjani & Ahmadi, 2011;Azeroual, 2014;Al Seyabi & Tuzlukova, 2015;Da Fontoura & Siegel, 1995;Shehu, 2015;Koda, 1994). They focused on finding out the problems that caused readers not to understand the texts well.…”

Relationship between Prior Knowledge and Reading Comprehension

“…Besides, among the three schemata, content schema labeled as the best indicator of text comprehension because with the use of appropriate schemata, the reader determines the important and relevant aspects of a text by excluding the secondary ones within text processing criteria, generating hypothesis for the gaps in comprehension and recalling them when it is necessary (Gilakjani and Ahmadi, 2011). Therefore, if there is not appropriate background knowledge, the reader cannot make sense well of what he is reading.…”

Extensive Reading in Action: Voices from the Grounds

“…First, in extensive reading program, the participants read a wide variety of texts as shown in their reading log, resulting in good background or prior knowledge which can be recalled in later reading activities. A number of studies demonstrate that prior or content knowledge contributes to reading comprehension (Abdelaal & Sase, 2014, Gilakjani & Ahmadi, 2011. They report that there is a significant relationship between prior knowledge and reading comprehension and this finding lends support to an interactive reading approach under basic notion that readers construct and reconstruct the text information based in part on the knowledge drawn from the text and in part from the prior knowledge available to readers.…”