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Table of contents Acknowledgement
4
Preface
5 1 Introduction
7
2 Schema Theory at a Glance
15
Schemata as Processors
25
Schema Theory and Education
28
3 Schema Theory and Reading comprehension: Macro versus Micro-structural Approach Macro-structural Schematic Approach to Teach Reading Passages
32
35 39
Micro-structural Schematic Approach to Teach Reading Passages 4 Introducing Micro-structural Schema-based Instruction 42 (MSBI) of Reading Passages How to set up a MSBI for Reading Passages Micro- structural Schema-based Test (MSBT) 5 Conclusion
46 60 66
Methodological Framework of MSBI
67
The pedagogical advantages of MSBI
73
References
76
Index
86
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Acknowledgment
It is my radiant sentiment to place on record my best regards and deepest sense of gratitude to my teacher Dr. Ebrahim Khodadady (Assistant professor of TEFL at Ferdowsi University of Mashhad (FUM), Iran) for his careful and precious guidance which were extremely valuable for this book to come out both theoretically and practically. Without his generous support the book would lack in accurate information on current developments. ϰ
Preface As we are living in the age of accountability, a part of professional role of teachers is to make good instructional decisions and to be able to explain to others the foundations of those decisions using evidence for both exemplary practice and research. One area of particular significance to the curriculum is that of concept leaning through texts; the connection between concept NQRZOHGJHDQGOHDUQHUV¶SHUIRUPDQFHVLQVLGHDQGRXWVLGHWKHDFDGHPLFFRQWH[WV should be the criterion of each language course success (Davis, 1944). A schema is a cognitive framework or concept that helps organize and interpret information. Schemata can be useful because they allow us to take shortcuts in interpreting the vast amount of information that is available in our environment. However, these mental frameworks also cause us to exclude pertinent information to instead focus only on things that confirm our preexisting beliefs and ideas. Schemata can contribute to stereotypes and make it difficult to retain new information that does not conform to our established ideas about the world. Linguists, cognitive psychologists, and psycholinguists have used the concept of schema to understand the interaction of key factors affecting the comprehension process. Simply put, Schema Theory states that all knowledge is organized into units. A schema, then, is a generalized description or a conceptual system for understanding knowledge-how knowledge is represented and how it is used. Schema Theory has been applied to various areas in education. Some of the focus has been on ³motor learning´, ³reading comprehension´ and ³mathematical problem solving´. Research focused on ³motor learning´ indicates that novel motor movements, such as throwing a ball to hit a target, rely on prior motor learning to achieve desired results. When the situations for throwing are organized or structured, individuals are able to increase their ϱ
performance by building on past performance. Wulf (1991) was further able to show that individuals who utilized a motor schema for learning were better able to transfer this knowledge to other situations. Khodadady, Alavi, & Khaghaninejad, (2012) tried to illuminate the possible effects of Microstructural Schema-Based Instruction (MSBI) on reading comprehension tasks and concluded that those EFL learners who had experienced MSBI had remarkably outperformed their peers who underwent the traditional TranslationBased Instruction (TBI) for same reading passages. Jitendra, et al. (2007) looked at MSBI with regard to learning mathematics in third-grade students. They showed that students who were instructed to focus on creating schemas about word problems were more proficient than students who were taught to look for keywords in solving word problems. In addition, the students who were taught to learn word problem schemas were better equipped for retaining the learning, as well as transferring the learning and applying this knowledge to other situations. The book is designed on the premise that the common approach to teaching and learning a second or a foreign language should be based on a theoretically sound and empirically validated basis. This can be achieved through schemabased teaching and testing techniques which seem to possess the potential for becoming a new teaching and learning paradigm. Although the efficacy of the Schema Theory has been documented in learning tasks through many studies (e.g. Khodadady & Khaghaninejad, 2012; Wulf, 1991), this book provides a new model of 6FKHPD7KHRU\¶Vapplication into language learning tasks, i.e., microstructural schematic approach. It seems to be an educational necessity to focus on the superiority of Schema Theory over the current common language teaching and testing approaches and accordingly offer an alternative to improve the quality of language education in this communication era. Mohammad Saber Khaghaninejad, Ph. D ϲ
Shiraz University
,1752'8&7,21
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nspired by Plato¶VHODERUDWLRQRIWKH³*UHHNGRFWULQHRILGHDOW\SHV´VXFK as the perfect circle that exists in the mind but which no one has ever VHHQ³Kant (1781) developed the notion further and employed the word
schema LQ KLV ZULWLQJV´ *DUGQHU S )RU H[DPSOH KH GHVFULEHV WKH ³GRJ´VFKHPDDVDPHQWDOSDWWHUQZKLFKFDQGHOLQHDWHWKHILJXUHRIDIRXU-footed animal in a general manner, without limitation to any single determinate figure as experience, or any possible image that can be represented in reality. Early developments of the idea in psychology emerged with the Gestalt psychologists and Piaget (Smith, 1996). However, according to Johnston (2001), it is with the work of Bartlett WKDWWKHWHUPFDPHWREHXVHGLQLWVPRGHUQVHQVH³WKLV learning theory views organized knowledge as an elaborate network of abstract PHQWDOVWUXFWXUHVZKLFKUHSUHVHQWRQH¶VXQGHUVWDQGLQJRIWKHZRUOG´ S As Johnston (2001) mentioned, in carrying out a series of studies on the recall of native American folktales in 1932, Bartlett noticed that many of the recalls were not accurate, but involved the replacement of unfamiliar information with something more familiar. They also included many inferences that went beyond the information given in the original text. In order to account for these findings, Bartlett proposed that people have schemata, or unconscious mental structures, that represent an individual's generic knowledge about the world. It is through schemata that old knowledge influences new information. For example, one of Bartlett's participants read the phrase ³somethLQJEODFNFDPHRXWRIKLVPRXWK´ and later recalled it as ³he foamed at the mouth.´ According to Bartlett (ibid.), This finding could be accounted for by assuming that the input information was not consistent with any schema held by the participant, and so the original information was reconstructed in a form that was consistent with one of the participant's schemata. (p. 342) ϴ
Bartlett's proposal was neglected in America during the behaviouristic era until its wholesale recapitulation in Neisser's (1967) massively influential cognitive psychology. Neisser's work led to the ubiquity of the term in psychology, and its extension to other disciplines, notably the cognitive and computational sciences. Since that time, many other terms have been used as well, including frames, scenes and scripts (Neisser, 1967). Some characteristics of schemata have been outlined by Neisser (1967, p. 54) as follows: x
Schemata are always organized meaningfully, can be added to, and, as an individual gains experience, develop to include more variables and more specificity.
x
Each schema is embedded in other schemata and itself contains subschema.
x
Schemata change moment by moment as information is received.
x
They may also be reorganized when incoming data reveals a need to restructure the concept.
x
Schemata as the mental representations used during perception and comprehension, evolve as a result of these processes, combine to form a whole which is greater than the sum of their parts.
x
Schema Theory is useful for reasoning, categorization, story interpretation, evaluation, inferences, and much more.
x
Schemata as conceptual structures help us understand, interpret, and remember incoming information. The Schema Theory, unlike its application, is a deeply-rooted learning
theory in the history of human knowledge which has had determining effects on various fields of knowledge; long ago, it was introduced in theology (Buri, 1976), then, philosophy (Smith, 1996), and then, it found its proper position in ODQJXDJHHGXFDWLRQ .KRGDGDG\ 7KLVVWXG\WULHVWRH[SORUHWKHWKHRU\¶V educational application in English teaching and testing contexts of Iranian academic centers. First, a theoretical review of Schema Theory is presented and ϵ
then an elaboration on what is operationally meant by its educational application is provided, albeit briefly. The Schema Theory was satisfactorily elaborated by the educational psychologist Anderson (1977). To him, schemata are interrelated and multiple structural in nature. They are generally thought to have a level of activation, which can spread among semantically and contextually related schemata. Which schema is selected in a given context depends on various factors such as current activation, accessibility, and priming: With priming, a brief imperceptible stimulus temporarily provides enough activation to a schema so that it is used for subsequent ambiguous information. Although this may suggest the possibility of subliminal messages, the effect of priming is so fleeting that it is difficult to detect outside laboratory conditions. Furthermore, the mere exposure effect ² which requires consciousness of the stimuli² is far more effective than priming. (p. 419) The Schema Theory, unlike some other learning theories such as ³EHKDYLRULVP´RU³FRJQLWLYHGLVVRQDQFH´GRHVQRWVHHNWRH[SODLQWKHDFTXLVLWLRQ of only certain types of behaviors or attitudes. Rather instructional strategies based on the theory, can be applied to any learning situations. Its ability to explain how numerous and different types of knowledge is learned and to suggest appropriate instructional strategies also makes the Schema Theory an effective and applicable rationale for educators and instructional designers. According to Rumelhart (1980), individuals have schemata for everything. Long before students come to school, for example, they develop schemata (units of personal knowledge) about everything they experience in life. Schemata become theories about reality and not only affect the way new
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incoming information is interpreted, thus affecting comprehension, but also continue to change as it is received. As a result, Schemata can represent knowledge at all levels_ from ideologies and cultural truths to knowledge about the meaning of a particular word, to knowledge about what patterns of excitations are associated with what letters of the alphabet. We have schemata to represent all levels of our experience, at all levels of abstraction. Finally, our schemata are our knowledge. All of our generic knowledge is embedded in schemata. (p. 41) To Armbruster (1996), the new schemata can be added, subtracted, ignored, or transformed depending on how the agent views the already established schema and whether s/he can form a meaningful relationship between the two. Schemata are important not just in interpreting information, but also in decoding how that information is presented. Schemata can be activated in text structures (Driscoll, 1997; Halliday & Hassan, 1989). Readers use their schematic representations of text (narrative, compare/contrast, cause/effect, etc.) to help them interpret the information in the text. It can also be activated through related image-presentation (Morimoto & Loewen, 2007) while both of these two types of activation is culturally determined, according to Kaplan (2007). The Schema Theory believes that people do not observe any reality straight, however, just via a perceptual framework. A psychological schema is the perceptual framework which people use to make sense of the world around them (Landry, 2002). Schema is a technical word used by cognitive proponents to describe how a person processes, arranges and stores information in his/her mind. Schemata concerns how we organize information to long term memory :LGGRZVRQ DQG ³PLUURUV WKH H[SHULHQFHV FRQFHSWXDO XQGHUVWDQGLQJ DWWLWXGHV YDOXHV VNLOOV DQG VWUDWHJLHV « >ZH@ EULQJ WR D WH[W VLWXDWLRQ´ ϭϭ
:LOOLDPV S *HQHUDOO\ VFKHPDWD RUJDQL]H RQH¶V LPSUHVVLRQV DQG influence how he/she may observe, perceive, and interpret the surrounding world (Reber, 2001). On the whole, schema can affect our lives. Schemata permit us to structure impressions. They influence how we may observe, perceive, and also interpret information. Luckily or unluckily, schemas may bias encoding of social knowledge. For instance, people who come from different countries or backgrounds may understand a situation in one way, whereas others, based on previous experience, may consider it to be something entirely different. ³6FKHPDWDDVZHOOGHSHQGRQHQFRGLQJ(QFRGLQJLVKRZZHFRGHZKDWZHPD\ QRWLFHKHDUVPHOORUWRXFKLQRXUPLQGV´ 5REHU 5REHUS $Q individual can rely on schemata in his life when s/he faces information that stick out. People have schemata for everything. Before coming upon any new information, they develop units of knowledge about everything they experience. Schemata become theories about reality. Several instructional implications logically follow Schema Theory. The most important is the role of prior knowledge in processing. In order for learners to be able to effectively process newly received information, their existing schemata related to the new content need to be activated. The importance of schema-activation can be seen in the fact that stimulating recall of prior knowledge LV WKH WKLUG VWDJH LQ 'ULVFROO¶V S QLQH VWHSV established to explain learning. Correspondingly, teachers of reading have IRXQG WKDW DFWLYDWLQJ D OHDUQHU¶V VFKHPDWD HQDEOH Whem to better process information they receive as input. Therefore, many scholars have advocated teaching learners meta-cognitive strategies, which are designed to activate their relevant schemata, before language pedagogic activities, such as reading heading and the title, looking for visuals in the text, and making predictions based on the title and the pictures (Driscoll, 1994; Neisser, 1967). ϭϮ
Anderson (1977) convincingly pointed out that, schemata provided a form of representation for complex knowledge and that the construct, for the first time, provided a principled account of how old knowledge might influence the acquisition of new knowledge. The Schema Theory was consequently applied to understanding and explaining the reading process, where it served as an important counterweight to purely bottom-XS DSSURDFKHV WR UHDGLQJ ³7KH 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 FRQWHQWRIWKHWH[W´ .KRGDGDG\ S In 1977, Rumelhart published Towards an Interactive Model of Reading, ZKLFKKROGVWKHIDFWWKDWUHDGLQJSURFHVVLVDFRPSOLFDWHG³LQWHUDFWLRQ´SURFHVV of many types of language knowledge, including letters, words, syntactic patterns and semantic meaning, etc., that is, interaction of direct and implicit information; language processing interacts at different levels. The problem with the broad and narrow use of the term schema surfaced in education just as it had in cognitive psychology. For example, in Anderson's (1977), he clearly took the broad view. He attacked the narrow view and said that it is impossible that people have stored a schema for every conceivable scene, event sequence, and message, and that an adequate theory must explain how people cope with novelty. However, in a paper written at roughly the same time (1978), Anderson stated that a schema represents generic knowledge, and he adopted the broad view systematically throughout the paper and noted that the systematic ambiguity between the narrow and broad views has made it very difficult to interpret a given writer's use of the term schema in the education literature. So far, what was said about schemata and the Schema Theory was a general, universally-accepted description. The term schema, however, has a different and narrower definition in the present study. Schemata are all linguistic PDQLIHVWDWLRQVHPSOR\HGE\VSHDNHUVZULWHUV¶ KHQFHIRUWKDGGUHVVHUV WRFRQYH\ ϭϯ
their intended message. These linguistic items are selected and produced in a given text on the basis of their world knowledge, expectations, personal attitudes, feelings and experiences. The reception or comprehension of the textual schemata is the function of the interaction between addressers and listeners/readers (henceforth addressees). Hence, the degree of comprehending each and all schemata depends on the amount of relevant background knowledge shared by addressers and addressees (Khodadady, 1997; Khodadady, alavi & Khaghaninejad, 2012). &RQVLGHULQJ WKH IDFW WKDW VSHDNHUZULWHU¶V VFKHPDWD DUH KLJKO\ personalized, a perfect comprehension, which is the essence of any educational program, is very remote if not impossible on the part of the readers/listeners. However, Schema Theory does postulate the possibility of achieving perfect comprehension by employing common semantic features constituting the produced schemata and their mutual sharing by interlocutors (Khodadady & Khaghaninejad, 2012). Khodadady (2008) provided an operationalized definition of schemata so that reading comprehension ability can be measured as precisely as possible. He defined a schema as a single word used along with other words to form an authentic text uttered or written for being heard or read under given conditions at specific places and time. This demarcation of schema as the building block of authentic textual products provided both linguists and language teachers with an objective measure to form their analyses and pedagogy on, respectively and paved the way for the application of Schema Theory in language teaching and testing. ϭϰ
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