Effects of schema based activities on EFL learners reading comprehension = ảnh hưởng của các hoạt động hoạt hóa kiến thức nền đối với khả năng đọc hiểu của người học tiếng anh

NGUYEN PHUONG NGAN EFFECTS OF SCHEMA-BASED ACTIVITIES ON EFL LEARNERS’ READING COMPREHENSION Field: Theory and Methodology of English Language Teaching Code: 8140111 Supervisor: Assoc

INTRODUCTION

Rationale

The field of second and foreign language reading has been revitalized in the past few years since our understanding of the nature of the reading process According to Carrel (1988, p 1), for many students, reading is by far the most important skill of the four in L2, especially in ESL or EFL Students need reading comprehension to successfully accomplish the educational goals and expectations, which are required in the classroom settings Furthermore, reading has a great function in opening up the horizon of knowledge as well as vocabulary used every day, which can contribute to other aspects of learning languages

Mikulecky and Jeffries (1996, p 14) state that comprehension is part of our lives, it makes sense of arriving new information and connecting these ideas to what he/she already knows Since reading is a process which happens among readers’ existing knowledge and ability to understand working information, it becomes important to make learners ready preceding the reading tasks Therefore, an effective method that has been introduced to activate students’ knowledge during pre-reading stage is using schema-based activities The theory claims that people need to combine their own background knowledge with new information in a text to comprehend it (Adams & Collins, 1977, p 4) Since this process involves individual experience, it succeeds in attracting students in reading and thus benefits them in motivating their interests, increasing their reading speed, and making proper reading judgments

With the context of integration and globalization in Vietnam, training and improving English proficiency seems to be a top priority However, English language teaching in Vietnam has not yet achieved impressive success as our desire due to several troublesome challenges One of these problems is students’ ability in reading comprehension In fact, reading materials containing various of vocabulary and unfamiliar topics that can make students confused and demotivated as they are unable to understand (Ha, 2021) In addition, many teachers may ignore the impact of their learners’ background and its role in comprehension As a result, most students are not aware of what they are going to read about, what they are going to do with the tasks, and so on

The problem is that few studies have been conducted on the field of using schema-based activities for language teaching and learning reading comprehension in Vietnam Consequently, to fill this literature gap, this present study aims to shed light on the implication of schema-based activities in teaching reading comprehension and its effects on EFL learners The study also finds out the students’ perceptions of using schema-based activities in learning reading comprehension.

Aim and objectives of the study

This study aims to examine the effects of schema-based activities on EFL learners’ reading comprehension

• to test the effects of schema-based activities on EFL learners’ reading comprehension

• to investigate the EFL learners’ perceptions of using schema-based activities in learning reading

Research questions

In order to achieve the above objectives, the following questions are proposed:

1 To what extent does the use of schema-based activities affect EFL learners’ achievement in reading comprehension?

2 What are the EFL learners’ attitudes towards the use of schema-based activities in learning reading?

Significance of the study

Although there are several studies about the schema activation in language teaching that have been proved, few are conducted in Vietnam, especially in Khanh Hoa Province Thus, it is essential to conduct this research because of the following reasons

Theoretically, the findings of the study may provide a basis for future researchers based on the use of schema theory It can also help teachers to have a clearer understanding of the nature and effects of schema on students’ reading comprehension

Practically, based on the results, teachers probably make decisions about using the schema-based activities in teaching rather than the traditional bottom- up activities to engage their learners in Moreover, learners may incorporate more of these schema-based activities into their self-study habits Finally, if there is a connection between students’ reading comprehension and schemas, materials developers can include more schema-based activities in their course books to encourage teachers and students to pay more attention to such activities.

Scope of the study

Due to the limited time, ability and research conditions, the scope of this study is confined in a population of 80 grade 10 th students from two intact classes at a language center in Khanh Hoa Province Therefore, the study’s generalization would be limited, and the results may not be representative of a larger same of all EFL students in Khanh Hoa Province.

Definitions of terms

- reading comprehension: reading comprehension can be briefly as “the process of making meaning from text” (Wolley, 2011, p 15)

- schema (plural: schemas or schemata): “schema refers to an active organization of past reactions, or of past experiences, which must always be supposed to be operating in any well-adapted organic response” (Barlett, 1932, p 201)

- schema theory: “The ‘schemata’ based learning theory indicates that readers process meaning which has been presented through print by using prior knowledge of the world to produce representations of anticipated meaning” (Hudson, 1982, p 1)

- schema-based activities: additional patterning activities that are needed to activate stored information and build new connections to successfully consolidate new and prior knowledge (Kennedy & Ebner, 1996, p 38).

Structure of the thesis

The thesis is presented in five chapters: Introduction, Literature Review, Research Methodology, Findings and Discussion, Conclusion and Implications

Chapter 1, Introduction , presents the rationale, aim and objectives, research questions, significance, scope, definitions of terms, and the structure of the thesis

Chapter 2, Literature Review , explores several underlying theoretical constructs that framed this study It also examines the relevant literature regarding 1) EFL reading comprehension, 2) the use of schema-based activities in reading comprehension, and 3) related studies on the use of schema-based activities in language learning

Chapter 3, Research Methodology , explains the research method Firstly, it presents the research questions and the hypotheses of the present study Secondly, it describes the research design and participants Thirdly, it introduces the research instruments used to collect data and the materials used for the intervention in detail Lastly, this chapter comes to an end with the procedure to conduct the study and the methods of data analysis

Chapter 4, Findings and Discussion , reports the results of the study

First of all, the reliability of the instruments is introduced Afterward, the score of learners’ reading comprehension between the experimental group and the control group are compared Then, the information collected from the questionnaire are analyzed Finally, the data of 6 the face-to-face semi- structured interviews are analyzed in order to give more explanations for the findings of the study It is done along with comparison with previous research

Chapter 5, Conclusion and Implications , makes a conclusion of the report of the study First, it summarizes the main findings Then, it suggests the research implications Finally, the limitations of the study and the suggestions for future research are the last part of this chapter.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Reading comprehension

To begin with, discussing on the reading concept, a large number of researchers have offered different definitions Reading is a complex interaction of cognitive process and strategies used by the readers with different types of information in the reading text (Dole et al., 1991, p 241; Hedgcock & Ferris,

2018, p 61) Similarly, Benati (2020, p 236) claims that “reading considered an interactive process between the reader and the text The text presents letters, words, sentences, and paragraphs that encode meaning The reader uses knowledge, skills, and strategies to determine what that meaning is” In addition, Nuttall (1996, p 2) adds reading is a process which involves decoding words and identifying meaning of a text functionally

Comprehension what is being read is more than just recognizing and decoding words, this process means readers are able to make sense of what they are reading and connect these information in the text with what they have already known (Mikulecky & Jeffries, 2007, p 74) So, reading comprehension is considered as the primary purpose for reading (Grabe, 2002, p 277) It can be simply understood as ‘reading and understanding’

Regarding reading comprehension, there are numerous definitions proposed by different scholars Ahmadi et al (2013, p 238) refer reading comprehension as the ability of readers to understand both the surface and hidden meanings of the text by using meta-cognitive reading strategies More specifically, reading comprehension can be seen as the reader’s ability to use and apply suitable skills as well as strategies to comprehend a text successfully (Benati, 2020, p 236) He also mentions that to comprehend a written text, readers must recognize and construct the meaning of the words Sharing the same idea as Benati, Kennedy & Ebner (1996, pp 127–128) and Macceca

(2014, p 5) believes that reading comprehension refers to understanding what is read, so readers must predict or think ahead; they do not just identify words, but must be able to cognitively process the words by getting meaning from their background knowledge and prior experience The goal, thus, is to gain a general understanding of what is mentioned in the text rather than to recognize meaning from isolated words or sentences

From all definitions above, in my view, it can be concluded that reading cannot be understood as a simple activity of decoding letters and words Instead, reading comprehension is a meaning construction activity which requires a good interaction between the reader and the text To do this, readers should have basic knowledge like vocabulary, grammar, skills as well as background information

Developing learners’ reading comprehension is the process of constructing meaning from a written text It involves making use of learners’ prior knowledge as well as thinking and reasoning In the development of reading skills, Alderson (2000, p 16), Benati (2020, p 236) and Camp & Richard (1992, p 87) point out two processing approaches that affect the ability of reading comprehension: bottom-up and top-down approaches

In bottom-up approach (traditional view), reading is considered as a passive (Alderson, 2000, pp 16–17; Carrell & Eisterhold, 1983, p 557) or simply a process of decoding the linguistics information (e.g., orthographic knowledge, lexical and syntactic knowledge) from the small to large units in a text Concerned this approach, Cambourne (1979), who uses the term ‘outside- in’ instead of bottom-up, believes that the reader processes each word as it is encountered, then the process of this approach works is presented as follow:

Print → Every letter discriminated → Phonemes & graphemes matched → Blending → Pronunciation → Meaning

In contrast, in top-down approach (cognitive view), reading is believed as an active process (Dole et al., 1991; Rumelhart, 1980, p 242) in which learners process beyond the analysis of linguistics information (e.g., knowledge of text structure) and background knowledge (e.g., topics’ familiarity) to understand the text A typical statement of this can be found in Schank (1978, p 94)

“We would claim that in natural language understanding a simple rule is followed Analysis proceeds in a top-down predictive manner Understanding is expectation based It is only when the expectations are useless or wrong that bottom-up processing begins.”

Cambourne (1979) also provides the schematization of this approach which shows the reconstruction of meaning rather than decoding form:

Past experience, language intuitions and expectations → Selective aspects of print → Meaning → Sound, pronunciation if necessary

Nuttall (1996, pp 16–17) compares top-down approach to an eagle’s eye view of the landscape, and the reader is like this eagle That means the eagle can see a wide area spread out from a great height, then it can understand and observe general patterns and the relationships between many parts on the ground While she views bottom-up processing as ‘tunnel vision’, she also gives a specific image of bottom-up processing which might be a scientist using a magnifying glass to examine the ecology of a transect – a tiny part of the landscape the eagle surveys

Both top-down and bottom-up processing are “complementary ways of processing a text” (Nuttall, 1996, p 16) Both of them are used whenever we read, sometimes one dominates, and sometimes the other, but both are needed (Nunan, 1991, p 63; Nuttall, 1996, p 16) However, both approaches still have their own shortcomings “One reason for the survival of bottom-up approach in the face of criticism is that it seems a reasonable and logical explanation of what happens when we read” and top-down model may not be used to

“distinguish adequately between beginning readers and fluent readers” (Nunan,

Nuttall (1996, p 17) offers a combination of bottom-up and top-down approach which is called ‘interactive approach’ (metacognitive view) or

‘balanced approach’ (Birch, 2007, p 4) to deal with the shortcomings in two above models In this approach, reading is an interactive act and readers are not passive participants in the reading process The reading process now adopts a top-down approach to predict the possible meaning, then move to the bottom- up approach to check if the prediction fixes the writer’s purpose (Nuttall, 1996, p 17) As a result, the difficult levels of a text depend on the linguistic information and the readers’ background knowledge

All in all, there are three reading comprehension approaches suggested by different scholars: bottom-up, top-down and interactive approaches Among them, interactive approach is considered as the most effective processing of written text (Carrell & Eisterhold, 1983; Rumelhart, 1980)

2.1.3 Reading comprehension teaching and learning

Goodman (1967, pp 131–132) believes that reading can be considered as a ‘psychologistic guessing game’ which requires readers to guess and predict before reading and activate their background knowledge, then confirm their guesses, and reconstruct the meaning As a result of such a view of reading, learners are taught to become active readers (Juan & Flor, 2006, p 264), that is, predicting and guessing the text meaning by using their language knowledge and background knowledge Similarly, “teachers who model reading skills and strategies, facilitate student performances of these abilities in comprehending texts and provide students with many opportunities for practice are encouraged in a number of comprehension-enhancing approaches – the best known of which are reciprocal teaching, cooperative learning and reading recovery” (Grabe, 2002, p 277)

Grabe (1991, p 396) derives a general set of guidelines for reading teaching:

1 Reading should be taught in the context of a content-centered integrated skills curriculum

2 Individualized instruction including skills and strategies should be provided in reading lessons

3 Sustained silent reading should be encouraged

4 Reading lessons should focus on background knowledge through

3 stages: pre-, during-, and post-reading tasks

5 Reading skills and strategies should be practiced regularly

6 Group work and cooperative learning should promote discussions of readings and explorations of different tasks solutions and textual interpretations

7 Students need to learn by reading

Moreover, he also reviews research on fluent academic reading in terms of six component abilities and types of knowledge that learners should have:

Schema Theory

Concerning Schema Theory, many scholars provides different definitions Bartlett is regarded as the first person who used the term ‘schema’

(Carroll, 2008, p 47) That is, schema is an organization of any “past reactions or experiences” in “a cultural setting” which “is stored in memory” and must be supposed to “be operating in any well-adapted organic response” (Barlett, 1932; Birch, 2007) In addition, Brown and Yule (1983, p 248) define schema as “the organized background knowledge which leads us to expect or predict aspects in our interpretation of discourse” They also say that our background knowledge is organized and stored in some fixed schemata, which can help people to make sense of new things quickly (Brown & Yule, 1983, p 250; Cook,

1997, p 86) Carrell & Eisterhold (1983, p 89) and Peregoy & Boyle (2016, p

342) believe that readers’ background knowledge largely affects language comprehension The text does not carry meaning itself; instead, it helps readers to retrieve meaning from their own previously acquired knowledge (An, 2013)

In short, as I understand it, although there are a variety of definitions of schema, the common idea is that they all mention about prior/ previous/ past/ pre-existing/ background knowledge which may be activated and altered based on the situation to support understanding

There are two basic types of schemas that play a role in the process of language understanding: formal schema and content schema Firstly, formal schema is defined as “background knowledge about the formal, rhetorical, organizational structures of different kinds of texts”, thus, it is “abstract, encoded, internalized, coherent patterns of meta-linguistic, discoursed, and textual organization that guides expectations in our attempts to understand a meaningful piece of language” (Carrell & Eisterhold, 1983, p 560) It is the knowledge of different text genres and their structural organization such as argumentation, exposition, description, narration, stories, poems and so forth

Its use is closely associated with bottom-up reading process In other words, formal schema refers to knowledge of language, knowledge of genre, metalinguistic knowledge and metacognition (Alderson, 2000, pp 34–41) (1) Knowledge of language including structural knowledge and vocabulary knowledge has long been measured to correlate with measures of reading comprehension Research by Laufer (1989) and Liu and Nation (1985) shows that readers need to know 95% of the words in the text to gain complete comprehension and to be able to guess the meaning of unknown words in the text Eskey (2012, p 94) claims that what important for good readers is not just decoding and interpreting the texts, but ‘speed and accuracy’ and ‘automaticity’ of decoding skills Therefore, successful comprehension of any written text is impossible without effective decoding skills (2) Knowledge of genre/text type which means knowing the organization of the text, the place of information, the signal of ideas, the change of the content is thought to be important in facilitating reading (3) Metalinguistic knowledge and metacognition have been proved in a study by Duffy et al (1987) It shows that bilinguals aware of reading skills and strategies (metacognitive awareness) become more aware of reading lessons, and then their score on reading achievement is better Therefore, if readers do not know the language of the text, they will find it difficult to process the text Secondly, content schema refers to “background knowledge of the content area of the text” (Carrell & Eisterhold, 1983, p 560) including knowledge of subject topic/matter, knowledge of the world and cultural knowledge (Alderson, 2000, pp 44–45) According to Alderson, the activation of world knowledge is ‘fast and automatic’ as “all language processing requires world language” However, culture knowledge is different as it depends on personal history or experiences Thus reading texts in unfamiliar cultural settings can lead to difficulty in understanding and reading texts in familiar settings can also result in misunderstanding Such knowledge really need to be activated by the reader, or the text, if they want to use in accurate understanding It would be clear that if one knows nothing about the topic of the text, one will have difficulty in processing it Content schema are largely culture-specific, it, thus, plays the most important role in deciding readers’ understanding of the passage, since whatever kind of text written is a product of culture

Widdowson (1990, p 108) categorizes schema into two kinds: ideational and interpersonal According to him, ideational schema refers to “our knowledge of conceptual content or topic”, and interpersonal schema is related to mode of communication

Landry (2002, p 1) divides schema into three types: content, formal, and abstract He claims that content schemas refer to “clearly evident relationships obvious from a topic”, formal schemas are “distinct connections based on understanding of generalizations and mindset”, and abstract schemas are “the hidden factors and thematic considerations”

In conclusion, although there are various types of schemas proposed by different scholars, all of whom are related to our linguistic and world knowledge.

Schema-based activities and reading comprehension

2.3.1 The effects of schema-based activities on reading comprehension

According to Alderson and Pearson (1988, pp 4–5), reading comprehension is described as the interaction between the relating textual information to the reader’s existing information called schemas Caldwell

(2011, p 238) and Carrell & Eisterhold (1983, p 556) also claims that previous knowledge profoundly affects reading comprehension and our ability to answer questions correctly The Schema Theory supports comprehension by calling up stable background knowledge which has great impacts on the way we process and understand new information (Benati, 2020, p 237; Grabe, 2002, p 282; Mikulecky & Jeffries, 2007; Qanwal & Karim, 2014) Similarly, Long (1989, p 32) thinks that “comprehension is based on learners’ ability to draw on their existing knowledge”, so suitable schemas need to be activated to facilitate efficient comprehension Carrol (2008, p 184) also justifies the role of schema in reading comprehension, as “what readers know affects what they understand” (Alderson, 2000, p 33) In his opinion, schemas are considered as “interlocking mental structured representing readers’ knowledge” When readers process written text, schemas function as a bridge that helps them integrate the upcoming information with their previous acquired knowledge (Perkins & Salomon, 1989) Furthermore, compare with structures and patterns which are in some sense in a text, schemas the reader brings to the text are much more important (Anderson et al., 1976) Their schemas, thus, have a great effect on how they digest information as well as how they store it in their memory More than that, it is useful for readers to make predictions (Widdowson, 1983), inferences (Pearson et al., 1979) and comprehension processes (Brantmeier,

2004) Therefore, it can help readers/listeners to achieve a high level of comprehension

Landry (2002, p 2) adds the specific role of the notion ‘schema’ to EFL teachers that is to help them have a better understanding of the process of reading by EFL learners He points out the difference between a strong and a weak view of schemas The former is something that influences the reader’s opinion before reading, while the latter would be one of organized previous knowledge that requires readers to make predictions of discourse

2.3.2 Pedagogical implication of schema-based activities in reading comprehension

Benati (2020, p 240) believes that “the pedagogical implication of the Schema Theory is the understanding that reading is an interactive process between readers and texts” So, based on this, he points out four basic steps that students need to follow when reading to learn:

1 Identify the authentic purpose of reading Predict or anticipate content by using prior knowledge, then think of suitable strategies for each type of reading text

2 Attend to parts of the text which are relevant to identified purposes and ignore the rest, which can help students to focus on specific items and reduce the amount of information they need to swallow

3 Pick up suitable strategies and use them flexibly and interactively Interactive strategies should be used

4 Check comprehension while reading and when the reading task is finished

Then, effective reading comprehension tasks are introduced to meet the need of learners, they include five phases: pre-reading, reading, in-text interaction, post-reading and personalization (Benati, 2020, p 242)

1 Pre-reading activities must be used to activate learners’ existing knowledge There are many techniques that can be used in this step:

• previewing is a quick kind of reading that helps readers to have a general look of the content and the text type (Aebersold & Field,

• visual guides may be employed by several sources such as television shows, video clips, movies, slides, pictures, charts, figures, or tables related to the text (Dutta, 1994)

• pre-questioning is also a common and effective pre-reading activities (Aebersold, J.A and Field, 1997, p 71; Brown, 2007, p 42; Lazar, 2009) Pre-reading questions can be structured questions or unstructured questions asked by teachers (Singer,

• brainstorming (Hood & Solomon, 1985, p 50) in groups or in pairs There are various brainstorming activities such as reflection and recording concept map/advance organizer/semantic mapping/ mind mapping K-W-L chart and pre-reading plan

• predicting content and activating students’ prior knowledge through (sub)titles, headings, divisions within the texts and illustrations “Prediction is important because it activates schemas: that is, it calls into mind any experiences and associated knowledge that we already have about the topic of the text; prediction also helps us to make sense of sentences” (Nuttall, 1996, p 13)

• skimming for main idea and scanning for specific information if necessary

• vocabulary pre-teaching can help learners deal with unknown words during reading comprehension process (Carrell, 1988)

• guessing from the context plays a vital part in helping readers to decode meanings of unknown words

These are reasons why teachers should give students enough time in the classroom for group previewing and predicting activities to prepare for a reading comprehension task (Benati, 2020, p 238) Similar to the idea above, another popular concept proposed by (Rumelhart, 1985) is that “one’s background knowledge plays a more important role than new words and new structures in reading comprehension” Therefore, “in teaching reading, the teacher should teach the background knowledge first so that students equipped with such knowledge will be about to guess meaning from the printed page” (Rumelhart, 1985)

2 During the reading stage, students are asked to scan for specific information after understanding general meaning At first, it is necessary for readers to understand the general meaning of the text, then they are asked to rapidly scan the text to establish whether they have guessed the content of the text during pre-reading activities

3 In the text-interaction stage, learners explore fully the text content Making inferences by using imagination and knowledge about the world to fill in facts and ideas that are not available in the text is also important Mikulecky & Jeffries (2007, p 88) call it “reading between the lines”

It is often necessary to read between the lines because writers may leave out information that they think readers have known already or will be able to guess Language instructors must make sure that learners do not read word for word and understand the purpose of reading as it can help them to select appropriate strategies

4 In the post-reading stage, learners are given tasks to check and verify comprehension in order to encourage them to learn from what they have read It is especially useful for readers to summarize the content of the text Summarizing means rewriting or paraphrasing information by using our own words Doing this can help to review and memorize information, and preparing information or ideas from different sources to build up background knowledge (Mikulecky & Jeffries, 2007, p 200)

5 In the personalization stage, learners are asked to exploit the communicative function of the reading text, e.g solve a problem, create a poster, etc

For these reasons, teachers need to take learners through these five-stage phases Moreover, it would be better if the teacher can select a familiar text for learners (Benati, 2020, p 238).

Related studies on applying schema activation to teach L2 reading

Desiring to investigate the effect of schema activation on language learners to study reading comprehension, some research on schema has been conducted both in Vietnam and abroad

Tran Thi Thanh Dieu (2015) conducted a study to find out the impact of KWL (Know-Want-Learn) method on passive students’ reading comprehension skills The research was carried out with 90 Vietnamese pre- intermediate students To collect data, several instruments used were lesson planning reflection sheets, two tests, videotape, colleagues’ observation and criticizing and filled questionnaire The finding of the study showed that with the use of KWL strategy, students seemed to be more active and interested in the lesson Group activity in the KWL strategy also gave students natural atmosphere, freedom from the teacher-watching pressure

Nguyen Thi Thuy Trang (2012) carried on another study to examine the effect of content schema (topic familiarity) on ESL reading comprehension, to find out whether time constraint affected ESL reading comprehension, and to explore the interaction between these two factors Four reading texts (two with familiar topics and the others were unfamiliar) in English of the same level of readability and difficulty were used as instruments The results showed that background knowledge played a significant role in students’ reading comprehension, and participants’ performance was significantly better in the no time constraint condition than in the time constraint condition In terms of the interaction, topic familiarity and no time constraint created the most stimulating environment for successful reading comprehension as measured by the cloze procedure

To Thi Ngoc Huyen and Nguyen Huynh Trang (2020) tried to find out teachers’ perceptions towards the role of schema activation in English reading comprehension and the most common instructional strategies EFL teachers use to foster schema activation in English reading lessons The sample of the current study consisted of 77 English language teachers from several high schools located in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam In this study, a questionnaire was used to collect quantitative data, whereas a semi-structured interview was used to collect qualitative data The research findings revealed that although high school English teachers had positive perception towards the role of schema activation in English reading comprehension, they confirmed instructional strategies were not always used to activate students’ schemas in

English reading comprehension In addition, these participants tended to use more simple strategies to activate their students’ schemas

Jian-ping & Li-sha (2016) investigated students’ views on English reading and three types of schemas (language schema, content schema and form schema) The subjects chosen for this investigation were 400 students in Grade

8 The students were asked to fill in a questionnaire anonymously From the result, linguistic schema played the most important role in students’ English reading In terms of content schema, it showed that most students liked the teachers teaching background knowledge, but the majority of them could not conjecture the content by the related knowledge Related to form schema, more than 70% of the students were willing to read story and culture; however, they knew little about exposition and argument, which made them difficult to understand

Cho, Young Ah, & Ma, Jee Hyun (2020) examined the effects of schema activation and reading strategy use on L2 learners’ reading comprehension The participants consisted of 89 Korean first-year college students Three major instruments were used in this study: a background questionnaire; pre-, post-, and delayed reading comprehension tests; and pre- and post- questionnaires In their findings, both the schema building and reading strategy task groups showed significant improvements in terms of immediate learning effects, but the reading strategy group showed an added degree of improvement over the schema building and control groups in terms of long-term reading comprehension

Yohannes Tefera Mengesha (2012) identified whether schema-based pre-reading tasks (SBPRT) improve students’ reading comprehension The subjects of the study were 56 first-year English major students taking the

‘Reading skills’ summer course at Jimma University Data collection instruments included pre-test, post-test and final exam test The difference was that no treatment was given in the pre-test whereas SBPRT was given as treatment in the post-test He concluded that students generally performed better in the post-test than in the pre-test Therefore, pre-reading tasks facilitated students’ reading comprehension

The study of Maryam Mahmudi (2012) had wider range because it aimed to investigate the effects of three types of schema-building activities (content, formal, and linguistic) on Iranian learners’ both listening and reading comprehension skills The participants were randomly assigned the experimental and control groups His findings gave direct support to the schema theory, that was comprehension (whether oral or written) happened only when a link was established between the newly incoming information and the already existing background These findings also supported the general concept of top- down reading and listening

Palita Thongyon and Thanyapa Chiramanee (2011) conducted a study for three purposes: (1) to compare the learners’ comprehension ability before and after the implementation of two types of pre-reading activities (guessing reading content from pictures and asking pre-reading questions), (2) to compare the effectiveness of these two pre-reading activities, and (3) to investigate the learners’ attitudes towards the implementation of the two pre-reading activities

To collect data for the study, the researcher chose reading comprehension tests and questionnaire Sixty students in Grade 9 were recruited to participate in the study They were assigned into 2 groups based on the scores sought from the test of reading comprehension administered prior to the experiment Based on the findings of the study, it could be concluded that the subjects performed statistically significantly better in the reading comprehension test after they had given the two pre-reading activities Moreover, guessing reading content from pictures were more effective in increasing learners’ reading comprehension ability than pre-reading questioning activity The results from the questionnaire showed that the subjects had positive attitudes towards the 2 types of pre- reading activities

On the other hand, the study of Alvermann et al (1985) showed contrary result with these studies above His study examined the effects of prior knowledge activation on readers’ comprehension of compatible and incompatible text Fifty-two 6 th grade students were assigned randomly to one of two groups The instruments of this study were compatible and incompatible text and a questionnaire Based on the results of pre-experimental knowledge domain and pilot data measures, the passage on rattlesnakes was judged compatible, while the one on sunlight was considered incompatible due to the counter-intuitive information it contained Surprisingly, the findings supported the notion that prior knowledge may interfere with, rather than facilitate, reading comprehension under certain conditions The reasons for the controversial result might be due to the diversity of measures used to collect data and various ways to operate background knowledge

Thus far, the review of related research has revealed two opposing trends for the effects of background knowledge on L2 reading comprehension There are still a number of studies showed the evidence that it has no effect, e.g Joann Hammadou (1991) He carried out his research to examine the effects of prior knowledge on the recall of text Participants in the study were eighty-nine students enrolled in both French and Italian at a university They were asked to read three different texts identified as French or Italian newspaper articles, and they were instructed to recount in English what they had just read after each passage before continuing to the next article When they had finished writing all three recall protocols, they were given a list in English about the topics which they had just read and instructed to rank them in order according to their prior knowledge related to these topics These range from simply classifying a subject as unknowledgeable in a topic a priori to extensive testing of the subject’s knowledge base Their familiarity was judged to result from their prior knowledge Each recall protocol was scored based on the percentage of the possible propositions contained in the protocol Unexpectedly, no significant differences between comprehension of familiar and unfamiliar topics as well as between familiar and unfamiliar recall for more proficiency and less proficiency readers were shown in the results In other words, content schema were proved to have no impact on L2 reading comprehension The limitations in this study was that the activity of rank ordering might not be reliable enough for eliciting information about the degree of background knowledge of readers

Regarding previous related studies and available literature in the field of EFL reading teaching and learning, the process of learning reading comprehension by implementing schema-based activities is of much concern Among the proved studies, mixed approach to research between qualitative and quantitative investigation of specific schema-based activities in reading comprehension for EFL high school students has still been not recognized This gap is necessary to be filled since it can enrich knowledge and ability of English reading comprehension level for high school students in Vietnam, which is the reason for the present research.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Research aim and hypotheses

The current study aims to investigate the effects of schema-based activities on EFL learners’ reading comprehension

The objectives of this research are to test the effects of schema-based activities on EFL learners’ reading comprehension and to examine the EFL learners’ perceptions towards the use of these activities in learning reading comprehension

In order to measure and evaluate the effects of schema-based activities of EFL learners’ reading comprehension, the following questions are proposed:

1 To what extent does the use of schema-based activities affect EFL learners’ achievement in reading comprehension?

2 What are EFL learners’ attitudes towards the use of schema- based activities in learning reading comprehension?

The study was based on schema theory of teaching reading comprehension along with the previous studies on the use of schema-based activities in teaching and learning English reading comprehension The hypotheses of the present study are as follows:

1 There is no statistically significant difference in the achievement in reading comprehension between the experimental group and the control group in the post-test

2 There is no statistically significant difference in the achievement in reading comprehension before and after the intervention of the experimental group between the pre-test and post-test

3 There is no statistically significant difference between the male and female students’ attitudes towards the use of schema-based activities in learning reading comprehension.

Research design

The study mainly followed quasi-experimental research with the pre-test and post-test The study involved two groups of participants labelled the experimental and control group In this study, both quantitative and qualitative approach were employed to answer the research questions The quantitative data was collected to measure the effects of using schema-based activities on EFL learners’ reading comprehension while the qualitative approach with the semi-structured interview was used to investigate the learners’ attitudes towards using schema-based activities in learning reading comprehension

The intervention of the study lasted within 12 weeks During the intervention, both groups received both online and traditional face-to-face instructions The control group was taught reading comprehension in traditional ways, with no focus on content schemas Meanwhile, for the experimental group, schema-based activities (independent variable) were implemented and students’ achievement in reading comprehension (dependent variable) was measured The implementation of schema-based activities related to content schemas was monitored during the study

To collect quantitative data for the study, the pre-test and post-test designed in the form of reading comprehension tests and the questionnaire used after the post-test were administered In order to collect qualitative data for the study, the semi-structured interview was conducted to document in-depth information about the participation on schema-based activities and perceptions of participants in the experimental group towards the use of schema-based activities for learning reading comprehension.

Participants

The researcher was in charge of instructing lessons to both experimental and control group

This study was completed at a language center in Khanh Hoa Province The subjects were grade 10 th students involving 80 participants from two intact classes The two classes were randomly assigned to the experimental group and control group The control group consisted of 40 students (17 males and 23 females) and the experimental group consisted of 40 students (16 males and 24 females) Table 3.1 presents the background information of the two groups

Table 3.1 Background of the participants Group Numbers of students Gender Years of study

Control group 40 17 males 23 females 7 years

Experimental group 40 16 males 24 females 7 years

Material and time frame

Thirty-six reading comprehension learning materials were chosen partly based on the topics from unit 5, unit 6, unit 7 and unit 8 of the grade 10 th coursebook (the ten-year curriculum) These reading comprehension materials were adapted from different sources including English exercise 10 (Luu Hoang Tri, 2020), Multiple-choice exercise 10 (Hoàng Thị Xuân Hoa, 2020), Mindset for IELTS level 1 (2017) and Cambridge Preliminary English Test (2010) by University of Cambridge The lesson plans used for each group are briefly presented in Table 3.2

Table 3.2 General lesson plans for teaching two groups

Teacher provides students with key words in the text

Students skim to find the main idea and scan for specific information to deal with the text

Students give their answers and teacher gives feedback

Students summarize the main content of the text

Teacher lets students do some of following activities: o look through the text/title and brainstorm of what they know about the topic o speed talk to the class o discuss in group o look through pictures or watch a short video o pre-questioning

Teacher asks students to identify the text types and models one or two examples (if the text types is not familiar)

Teacher provides students with key words

Students skim to find the main idea and scan for specific information to deal with the text

Students give their answers and teacher gives feedback

Students summarize the main content and share their thought about the topic with the class

Teacher adds further related information

Both groups were taught reading comprehension for 12 weeks, each week has 3 periods (totaling 36 periods), each period lasted 90 minutes in which

Instruments

In this research, three instruments were employed

Firstly, the reading comprehension pre- and post- tests were administered to collect data The pre-test was used to measure reading comprehension level of the learners in the two groups before the intervention The post-test was conducted to measure reading comprehension level in both groups after they had experienced the twelve-week intervention

The second instrument was the questionnaire The questionnaire was conducted after the intervention had finished in order to examine the perception of the participants in the experimental group on the use of schema-based activities in learning reading comprehension

The semi-structured interview was the final instrument The interviewees involved six participants from the experimental group It was conducted to deepen the understanding of the participants’ experience of schema-based activities in their learning and their perceptions on it

The pre-test and post-test of the study had the same content and format, the total words in both tests were respectively equal Before the administration of the pre-test to the participants, the pre-test was piloted by 10 students of an intact class from the same place to test the reliability and validity of the instrument These intact students had the same background as the participants

As a result, the reliability and validity of the two tests would be strengthened

Hoang Van Van (2018) claims that Grade 10 students fit into CEFR Level B1-1 Thus, the reading tests were similar in level of difficulty and taken from English 10 exercise of Luu Hoang Tri (2020) and Cambridge Preliminary English Test 1 (2010) Both tests lasted for 20 minutes and followed the format in Table 3.3

Table 1.3 Reading comprehension tests format

Task type What learners have to do

Read five real-world notices, messages and other short texts for main messages

2 5 Matching Match five description of people to eight short texts on particular topic, showing detailed comprehension

3 10 True/False Scan a longer factual text for specific information

Read a text for detailed comprehension, inference as well as writer’s attitude, opinion and purpose

The questionnaire was administered to the participants in the experimental group

The first part of the questionnaire was about general information of the participants such as their age, their gender, their time for studying English and the average time they spent practicing reading comprehension

The second part of the questionnaire was to find out the schema-based activities that participants were interested in and their attitudes towards the use of them It was based on a five-point Likert scale, which was adapted from the questionnaire construction models designed by Nashmiah Awadh Almutairi

(2012) - who conducted a study to investigate the effects of the schema theory on teaching listening comprehension and how this theory helped EFL teachers teach listening effectively, and by Tô Thị Ngọc Huyền and Nguyễn Huỳnh Trang (2021) – whose study was to examine EFL teachers’ perceptions towards schema activation in English reading comprehension

The semi-structured interview was administrated after the questionnaire had been carried out This interview gave the researcher a deeper understanding of students’ entire process of learning as well as their perceptions of schema- based activities 6 out of 80 students in the experimental group were interviewed The 6 students were 2 students who got the highest scores, 2 students who got the average scores, and 2 students who got the least in the post-test Such choice could help to collect different ideas based on learners’ levels The participants were expected to give comment on what they found useful or less useful about schema-based activities, what they liked or did not like, what challenges they encountered while joining these activities and whether they connected them with their self-study habit.

Data collection procedure

The study encompassed three phases Phase 1 lasted two weeks before the intervention Phase 2 was the administration of the intervention with the duration of 12 weeks Phase 3 was conducted after the intervention and lasted one week

Phase 1 was aimed at preparing for the participants’ enrollment and the instruments of the study A pilot study was carried out to see if the students had any difficulties in dealing with the test and to verify whether the pre-test ensured the reliability The participants in the pilot study were ten 10 th grade students, whose EFL context was closely similar to the participants in the actual study After that, the researcher randomly assigned two intact classes where the researcher was working into the experimental group and the control group The pre-test, then, was done by the two groups without notification about the format of the test The data was run to analyze the reliability by using SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) Statistics Software 26

In phase 2, the intervention was administered in 12 weeks The duration of the intervention was equivalent to the length of time allocated to teaching four units of the curriculum During the administration of the intervention, the experimental group was instructed with the schema-based activities before and after reading comprehension

In phase 3, after 12 weeks of intervention, the post-test was administered immediately on the control group and the experimental group to measure students’ reading comprehension The participants got no notification of the administration of the post-test The procedure to administer the post-test and grade the participants’ test paper was like those of the pre-test

Afterward, the questionnaire was conducted by the participants in the experimental group

Finally, six participants in the experimental group were invited to join a semi-structured interview with the researcher to gain further information.

Validity and reliability

The validity of the reading comprehension tests was strengthened with detailed format built up from Hoang Van Van (2018)’s theory, which has been widely accepted Moreover, the reliability of the data was analyzed with the help of Scale Test in SPSS Thus, the tests were proved to be valid and reliable enough to be used in this study

So far, the research methods, research procedures, samples and other aspects related to research methodology have been presented in this Chapter Findings of the study are presented in the next chapter, Chapter IV, with relevant data, examples, and interpretations.

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

Students’ achievement in reading comprehension between the control

As mentioned in chapter 3, two reading comprehension tests were used as the pre-test and post-test to measure the ability in reading comprehension of the participants in both groups before and after the 12-week intervention The score of two 25-question reading comprehension tests was ranged from 0 to 10 points A Scale Test was run to check the reliability of these tests Table 4.1 displays the result of Scale Test

Table 4.1 Reliability of the pre-test and post-test of the two groups

Cronbach’s Alpha Cronbach’s Alpha Based on Standardized Items

As illustrated in Table 4.1, the reliability of the pre-test and post-test is acceptable (α = 0.7 respectively) Accordingly, these tests are reliable enough to be used as instruments in this research

4.1.1 Students’ achievement in reading comprehension between the two groups before the intervention

To evaluate students’ achievement in reading comprehension between the two groups before the intervention, a Descriptive Statistics Test and an Independent-Sample T Test were carried out Table 4.2 shows the result

Table 4.2 Students’ achievement in reading comprehension between the control and experimental group before the intervention

Group Minimum Maximum Mean Std

As revealed in Table 4.2, in the pre-test, the min as well as max score of the control and experimental group are equal (Min = 2.00; Max = 10.00) Besides, the mean score of the control group (M = 5.00) is a little bit lower than that of the experimental group (M = 5.05) To check whether there is a significant difference in the learners’ reading comprehension in the pre-test between the two groups, an Independent-Sample T Test was carried out The result is presented in Table 4.3

Table 4.3 Difference in the pre-test between the two groups t df p Mean Difference

The result in Table 4.3 shows that the difference in reading comprehension in the pre-test between the control and experimental group is not significant (t = -.117, df = 78, p = 907 > 05) In other words, the participants’ reading comprehension level in the pre-test is the same This result is reasonable since the participants share the same culture, native language, the same curriculum, the equal time learning English officially (shown in the questionnaire) This minimizes differences among variables while collecting data and hence promotes a higher validity of research findings The two groups, therefore, are homogenous before the intervention

4.1.2 Students’ achievement in reading comprehension between the two groups after the intervention

A Descriptive Statistics Test and an Independent-Sample T Test were run to evaluate participants’ reading comprehension ability after the intervention The results are presented in Tables 4.4 and 4.5

Table 4.4 Students’ achievement in reading comprehension between the control and experimental group after the intervention

Group Minimum Maximum Mean Std

As mentioned above, in the pre-test, two groups’ reading comprehension ability performs a noticeably small gap (Mpre = 5.00 for the control group, and Mpre = 5.05 for the experimental group) In contrast, after the implementation of schema-based activities, the mean score in the post-test has a difference (figure 4.1)

Figure 4.1 Summary of participants’ achievement in reading comprehension before and after the intervention

More specifically, it shows a surged trend in the mean score of both groups’ achievement in reading comprehension; furthermore, the mean score of the experimental group (M = 7.44) is higher than that of the control group (M = 7.09)

To check whether there is a significant different between these groups, an Independent-Sample T Test was run The result is presented in Table 4.5

Table 4.5 Difference in the post-test between the two groups t df p Mean Difference

The result from the Independent-Sample T Test indicates that there is no statistically significant difference between the experimental and control group after the intervention (t = 979, df = 78, p = 330 > 05)

In conclusion, although the difference between the two groups in the post-test is not significant enough, the mean score of the experimental group is statistically higher than that of the control group Thus, it is hard to deny that participants achieved better comprehension under the condition of schema- based activities than those who did not experience, as marked by reading comprehension scores after 12 weeks Thus, it partially supports the hypothesis that schema-based activities still have positive effects on students’ reading comprehension.

Students’ achievement in reading comprehension within the

4.2.1 Students’ reading comprehension difference between the pre-test and post-test

To check whether there is a significant difference within the experimental group before and after the intervention, a Paired-Samples T Test was run The result is presented in Table 4.6

Table 4.6 Difference between the pre-test and post-test within the experimental group

As can be seen in Table 4.6, there is a statistically significant difference within the experimental group in the pre-test and post-test (p = 000 < 05) Thus, it can be concluded that schema-based activities have great effect on students’ achievement in reading comprehension

4.2.2 Students’ reading comprehension detailed score in the pre-test and post-test

In the pre-test, there were 23 students whose score was lower than average (total score < 5), accounting for 58%, and 17 students having total score higher than average, accounting for 43% That means the participants’ total score was generally low before the intervention, as shown in Figure 4.2

Figure 4.2 Detailed score in the pre-test of the participants in the experimental group

Figure 4.3 shows the detailed score in the post-test of the participants in the experimental group

Figure 4.3 Detailed score in the post-test of the participants in the experimental group

Higher than average Lower than average

Higher than average Lower than average

In terms of the post-test, the number of students whose score was lower than average reduced remarkably There were only 5 students left, accounting for 13% The number of students with total score higher than average was 35 students, accounting for 88%, although their marks mostly oscillated from 5.2 to 7.2

Thanks to the application of schema-based activities in reading comprehension for 12 weeks, it is clearly seen that the subjects in the experimental group performed statistically significantly better in the reading comprehension test after receiving schema-based activities The mean score of the whole group has increased and the lower-than-average score has reduced astonishingly As a result, schema-based activities are proved to be effective in improving learners’ reading comprehension

4.2.3 Students’ performance in each part of the reading comprehension tests

As mentioned in Chapter 3, there are 4 parts in the reading comprehension tests Each part has different text types and different purposes to check participants’ reading comprehension based on their content schemas

A Descriptive Statistics Test was run to find out the mean score of each part of the pre-test and post-test The results are shown in Tables 4.7 and 4.8

Table 4.7 Mean score of each part of the pre-test

N Minimum Maximum Mean Std Deviation

Table 4.8 Mean score of each part of the post-test

N Minimum Maximum Mean Std Deviation

As can be seen in Tables 4.7 and 4.8, part 2 (Mpre = 0.78, SD = 587; Mpost = 1.33, SD = 583) which asks students to match five descriptions of people with eight short texts seems to be the most difficult one as it needs their detailed comprehension and the ability to distinguish the differences between them Part 1 has the second lowest mean score (Mpre = 1.15, SD = 522; Mpost

= 1.42, SD = 479) For those who lack of practical knowledge including the text types or everyday expressions may find it a little bit challenging since its instruction is to read real-world notices And then followed by part 4 (Mpre 0.99, SD = 627; Mpost = 1.86, SD = 411) which requires students to read for detailed information and to infer writer’s meaning or purposes This part provides students with 4 options; therefore, it may be easier for students to choose the appropriate answers Finally, part 3 which has True-False format gets the highest mean score among the four (Mpre = 2.13, SD = 755; Mpost 3.08, SD = 661)

The purpose of these reading comprehension tests is to see the effects of two types of schemas namely formal schemas and content schemas on students’ reading comprehension We can see that if the text types are real-world messages (part 1), the text which requires detailed comprehension (part 1, part

2 and part 4) or the text which includes inference (part 4), students may fail to deal with them In terms of part 3, it has True-False format seems to be easier for students to do After 12 weeks of intervention, the results in each part of the post-test is higher than that of the pre-test, which shows that schema-based activities can help students with their reading comprehension ability

In short, it is found that both groups performed better in the post-test than in the pre-test However, when the performance scores in the post-test of the two groups were analyzed comparatively, the group that received the implementation of schema-based activities is better than the group that did not This result is partially in line with some previous studies, for example, Cho &

Ma (2020), Mengesha (2012), Smith et al (2021), Trang (2012), Pearson et al

(1979), Johnson (1981) that schema activation has positive effect on students’ reading comprehension At the same time, the positive role of background knowledge in the context of this study is in contradiction to the findings of Hammadou’s (1991) study, which did not find any impact of background knowledge on L2 reading comprehension The discrepancy in the findings may be attributed to differences in the methodologies, operationalization of participants’ background knowledge as well as levels of proficiency, text difficulty and other factors Furthermore, findings of the current study do not support studies which found negative impacts of background knowledge on reading comprehension (e.g Alvermann et al (1985) and Lipson (1983)) In these studies, participants were found to over-dependent on their background knowledge and thus draw wrong information in their recall of the original reading texts.

Students’ attitudes towards the use of schema-based activities in

After the post-test had been done by the two groups, a 25-item questionnaire was completed by all participants in the experimental group to investigate their attitudes towards the application of schema-based activities in learning reading comprehension A Scale Test was run to examine the reliability of the questionnaire The result is shown in Table 4.9

Table 4.9 Reliability of all items in the questionnaire

As can be seen in Table 4.9, the reliability of the questionnaire is acceptable (α=.74) Thus, the questionnaire used in the study is validated and reliable enough for the data collection

Forty participants in the experimental group responded to the questionnaire containing three sections: personal information, schema-based activities, and their attitudes towards them After filling their personal information, these participants were asked to range their interest by marking of five items from not at all interested, not very interested, neutral, somewhat interested to very interested in each schema-based activity in part 1 In part 2, they marked five-group scales ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree for individual items related to their experience and attitudes towards these activities during the intervention

4.3.1 Students’ time of practicing reading comprehension outside the class

A Frequency Statistics Test was run to measure students’ time of practicing reading comprehension outside the class, as shown in Table 4.10

Table 4.10 Time students spent practicing reading comprehension outside class

Less than 1 hour per week 6 15.0 15.0 15.0

Between 1 and 3 hours per week 27 67.5 67.5 82.5

More than 3 hours per week 7 17.5 17.5 100.0

From the table above, there are six participants practicing reading comprehension for less than 1 hour per week (15%), seven participants practicing reading comprehension for more than 3 hours per week (17.5%) Many of the participants spend from 1 to 3 hours per week practicing reading comprehension (27 participants, 67.5%) It can be assumed that the participants practiced reading comprehension at an average time per week

It can be concluded that all the participants have the same background They are all grade 10 th students who have experienced 8 years of learning English officially; moreover, the time they spend practicing English reading comprehension after school is quite similar Thus, these external elements may not unexpectedly affect the results of schema-based activities on students’ reading comprehension during the intervention

4.3.2 Students’ preferences for each activity

A Descriptive Statistics Test was carried out to examine the total mean score of students’ preferences for each schema-based activity in learning reading comprehension The result is presented in Table 4.11

Table 4.11 Students’ preferences for schema-based activities

N Minimum Maximum Mean Std Deviation

Table 4.11 illustrates that the total preference mean score is rather higher than the average (M = 3.63, SD = 598) It can be inferred that most of the students enjoy schema-based activities

Presented in Table 4.12 is the Descriptive Statistics Data of the mean scores of participants’ preference towards specific schema-based activities

Table 4.12 Mean score of students’ preferences for each schema-based activity

Quick talking to the class 40 1 5 3.45 1.154

Talking about what have been learnt from the reading text

As illustrated in Table 4.12, ‘Quick talking to the class’ and ‘Talking about what have been learnt from the text’ get the lowest mean score (Quick talking M = 3.45, SD = 1.154; Talking about what have been learnt M = 3.40,

SD = 1.081), followed by ‘Pre-questioning’ (M = 3.63, SD = 925) ‘Using audio visual aids’ and ‘Group discussion’ are the highest (Using audio visual aids M = 4.00, SD = 679; Group discussion M = 3.65, SD = 834)

Despite the difference in preference of these schema-based activities, it is clear that all participants in the experimental group have interest in this type of activities It is suggested for teachers to use audiovisual aids such as videos, pictures, maps, charts, etc (Dutta, 1994) which are related to the topics students are going to learn as they are interesting and can help students acquire unfamiliar knowledge easier Group discussion is also a good way to activate their background information because they can share everything with their friends and reduce the sense of worry What is more, it would be better if teachers can develop useful questions to make students brainstorm about the content or the text type, which help them prepare themselves before reading, which matches the theory of Aebersold, J.A and Field (1997) and Brown

(2007), and the study of Tran Thi Thanh Thuy & Phuong Hoang Yen (2018) The two lowest score items are related to ‘talking’ which may be because of their anxiety about English speaking skills (Thornbury, 2005, p 25) Teachers, therefore, should create a stress-free classroom environment so that students can feel more comfortable to talk to the class Moreover, it is important for EFL teachers to choose suitable activities to activate and enhance students’ schemas in reading lessons

4.3.3 Students’ attitudes towards the use of schema-based activities in learning reading comprehension

A Descriptive Statistics Test was carried out to examine the total mean score of students’ attitudes towards the implementation of schema-based activities in learning reading comprehension The result is presented in Table 4.13

Table 4.13 Overall mean score of students’ attitudes towards the use of schema-based activities in learning reading comprehension

N Minimum Maximum Mean Std Deviation

The result from the data analysis shows that the participants in the experimental group have positive attitudes towards the application of schema- based activities into reading comprehension periods they were experiencing as the total mean score is quite high (M = 3.89, SD = 41)

4.3.3.1 Students’ affective attitudes towards the use of schema-based activities in learning reading comprehension

The first six questions in part 2 were created to investigate participants’ affective attitudes towards the use of schema-based activities in learning reading comprehension A Descriptive Statistics Test was carried out to explore the overall mean of learners’ affective attitudes Table 4.14 shows this result

Table 4.14 Students’ overall affective attitudes towards the use of schema-based activities in learning reading comprehension

N Minimum Maximum Mean Std Deviation

After that, a One-Sample T Test was computed to evaluate whether the mean of the first six questions is higher than 3.5 (the accepted mean for positive feeling towards these activities) The result is presented in Table 4.15

Table 4.15 Students’ positive affective attitudes towards the use of schema-based activities in learning reading comprehension

As can be seen from Tables 4.13 and 4.14, the Mean – Affective of the participants (M = 3.85, SD = 464) is higher than the scale 3.5 of the positive attitudes (t = 4.526, df = 39, p = 000) This means that the participants’ affective attitudes towards the use schema-based activities in learning reading comprehension is highly positive

Another Descriptive Statistics Test was run to figure out the participants’ detailed affective attitudes for each item, as shown in Table 4.16

Table 4.16 Students’ detailed affective attitudes towards the use of schema-based activities in learning reading comprehension

6 I can now feel less worried before reading 40 3.50 877

7 I think schema-based activities are interesting and understandable

8 I feel curious and interested in the reading text if I am provided with knowledge about unfamiliar topics

9 I feel more confident to deal with reading activities 40 3.68 917

10 Schema-based activities increase my interest in studying reading comprehension

Test Value = 3.5 t df p Mean Difference

11 Schema-based activities make the classroom environment more enjoyable and less stressful

From Table 4.16, it can be said that schema-based activities made students curious about the content of the reading text, as marked by item 8 which gets the highest mean score (M = 4.00, SD = 778); followed by item 7 (M = 3.95, SD = 986) which means that these activities are easier to understand They also bring positive feelings for students before reading such as enjoyment (item 11, M = 3.80, SD = 823), confidence (item 9, M = 3.68, SD = 917), interest (item 10, M = 3.58, SD = 958), and so on

As for learners’ affective aspects, schema building facilitates learners’ extrinsic motivation, environment orientation, feeling orientation, and effort orientation The schema-based activities can change their perceptions to be more active and productive

4.3.3.2 Students’ cognitive attitudes towards the use of schema-based activities in learning reading comprehension

A Descriptive Statistics Test was run to explore the mean of learners’ cognitive attitudes towards the application of schema-based activities in learning reading comprehension

Table 4.17 Students’ cognitive attitudes towards the use of schema-based activities in learning reading comprehension

N Minimum Maximum Mean Std Deviation

A One-Sample T Test was run to figure out whether the mean of cognitive attitudes differed from 3.5 (the medium level for positive attitudes)

Table 4.18 Students’ positive cognitive attitudes towards the use of schema-based activities in learning reading comprehension

Test Value = 3.5 t df p Mean Difference

As can be seen from Tables 4.17 and 4.18, the cognitive mean (M = 3.87,

SD = 471) is higher than the scale 3.5 This means that participants’ cognitive attitudes towards the use of schema-based activities in learning reading comprehension are somewhat positive

Another Descriptive Statistics Test was run to figure out the participants’ detailed cognitive attitudes The result displays in Table 4.19

Table 4.19 Students’ detailed cognitive attitudes towards the use of schema-based activities in learning reading comprehension

12 I can read more quickly when studying with schema- based activities

13 I can understand the content of the reading text better thanks to the activation of my background knowledge

14 Schema activation enables me to determine important information of a text, and decide where to pay attention

15 Pre-reading stage including schema-based activities is more interesting and helpful than vocabulary teaching only

16 I can talk about what I have read clearly and confidently

17 I find schema-based activities useful in comprehending reading materials

18 Schema-based activities provide me with real knowledge and specific purpose about what I am going to read

19 The information I have already known help me in guessing the ones I do not know

20 Schema-based activities motivate me to do more reading comprehension tasks outside the classroom

21 Schema-based activities give me chance to practice thinking and analyzing

22 In the reading process, I can use text clues and my activated schemas to make inferences that go beyond the information literally stated in the text

23 Schema-based activities make me know more from sharing ideas with my classmates

24 Schema-based activities challenge me to ask questions to myself to make prediction about the text

25 I will try to widen my schema because it helps me a lot in learning reading comprehension

Students’ understanding of using schema-based activities in learning

After collecting the data from the questionnaire, the researcher interviewed six students among participants in experimental group in order to further identify their experience, the benefits and difficulties they face while participating in schema-based activities The face-to-face semi-structured interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed Firstly, all of the participants asserted the usefulness of schema-based activities in learning reading comprehension For example, they said:

“… I think schema-based activities are useful and interesting; it helps me brainstorm about the topic and the genre of the reading passage, so

I am ready to deal with it.” (Participants A and B)

“Schema activation may help me predict the content of the reading texts, as well as some main ideas in these texts.” (Participant C)

“… Through discussion with my group members, I can enhance my knowledge The discussion is so interesting because I can share anything with my friends; I feel less worried before reading because I know what I am required to do; I can understand the meaning of new words and text genre …” (Participants C and F)

The words that were mostly repeated in students’ responses were connected to the interesting and understandable features of schema-based activities As mentioned above, they helped them get ready and felt less worried before dealing with the reading tasks, especially when the topic was unfamiliar, and the genre of the reading passage was strange

What is more, their reading skills has also been affected positively by schema activation, as mentioned respectively by participants A, B, C, D and F

“My reading skills have been slightly improved.” Specifically, they said:

“… now I seem to read and deal with the reading tasks a bit faster than before.” (Participant A)

“ … Now I read with clear purposes, I am aware of what I am going to do, what I am going to read about, and I can understand the content of the text clearer.” (Participants A and F)

“… Sometimes I can guess the writer’s implication and meaning of new words based on my activated schemas.” (Participant B)

“My reading comprehension speed is faster, and I can guess the meaning of the text though there are some new words.” (Participant D)

Thirdly, the most interesting schema-based activities were also mentioned by the interviewees There were three out of six students (participants A, B and C) said they were keen on group discussion as they could freely express their knowledge In addition, two participants (participants B and D) mentioned they preferred audio visual aids like videos and pictures most since it gave them practical knowledge The others (participants D and E) expressed their interests in sharing with the whole class

“When you asked us to discuss in group, we share lots of ideas without the fear of this is right or wrong At that time, I feel more comfortable and less nervous Besides, I can get more knowledge from my friends.” (Participants B, C and F)

“Watching videos give me more real-world knowledge and makes me concentrate and feel excited, as it is easier to understand abstract reading topics.”(Participants B and D)

The participants also posed some challenges while joining schema-based activities Distraction was the problem that two participants mentioned, as students A and F said,

“… I sometimes feel distracted because some of the members in my group chat with others without discussing.”

In addition, the participants also mentioned several problems they encountered when learning with schema-based activities, for example time allocated for the activities is short, the necessary vocabulary and experiences are limited These things are mentioned by participants A, B, C, E and F,

“The time allocated for pre-reading activities is sometimes not enough for us to discuss.” (Participant A)

“There are few videos containing many new words, which makes me difficult to understand, so at that time, I just pay attention to the motion pictures.” (Participant B)

“I may bring a wealth of experiences, knowledge of reading text’s topic to the classroom, but what lack is a way to express this knowledge in English.” (Participant C)

“My practical knowledge is not wide enough to share my ideas with my partners.” (Participants E and F)

When asked, the participants all said that they would like teachers to apply various types of schema-based activities into reading comprehension lessons Moreover, they also suggested some ways to make these activities more interesting Participant A suggested that after discussion, they could take turns to present their ideas; the group having more correct answers would be the winner Participant F hoped that instead of chatting, all group members would concentrate on discussing; and in post-reading stage, she would like all the groups to write an essay, to write a map or picture about what they read

Finally, most of them agreed to try to broaden their background knowledge after school They think that reading books, using social networking sites, or talking with their friends can help them to know more about the real world Besides, some of them will join English groups on Facebook and learn vocabulary if they are interested

“I think I will read news when surfing the Internet or reading books.” (Participants A, D and F)

“I will watch news on TV or on the Internet I will also learn new words by watching videos on Youtube.” (Participants B, D and F)

“I will learn new words through reading texts or join English groups If there are new words related to the topic that I am interested in, I will take note them.” (Participant A)

Based on the results of the post-test, questionnaire and the information given by six representative participants in the experimental group, activating relevant schemas is proved to bring benefits to EFL learners in reading comprehension achievement and feelings Schema activation may help the students predict the content as well as some main ideas of the reading texts, and make inference about writers’ opinions Besides, they can get more knowledge and understand unfamiliar topics better Without schemas related to the topics, students still understand the reading text in the literal level; however, they may not make inferences about information embedded implicitly in the text Thus, it is clear that students with sufficient schemas understand and remember reading texts better than those with little schemas What is more, students feel less stressed and more comfortable before reading with the help of schema activation

Most of the participants show their interest in schema-based activities, especially for group discussion and using audiovisual aids In discussion activity, the students feel comfortable to share their ideas together without the fear of this is right or wrong In terms of audiovisual aids, it is useful for abstract and difficult topics as it can make student easy to understand

However, there are difficulties that students face when participating in schema-based activities The first thing is that students’ limited linguistic competence or real-world information prevents them from expressing what they already knew about the topics Secondly, instead of focusing on discussion, some students chat with their friends, which make others distracted Finally, the time allocated for these activities may not enough for students to share their ideas Therefore, students tend to give up and claim reading is boring, they become frustrated and discouraged, even lose interest in learning English reading comprehension

What is more, these students raise their voice to suggest possible ways in order to make schema-based activities more interesting The first way is to create competitive atmosphere in which students try to express their available schemas as much as possible, who has the most correct answer will be the winner Besides, they also want to draw maps or write essay instead of talking about what they have learnt from the text, which may because they are afraid of speaking English

All in all, students’ attitudes about schema-based activities are positive, and aware of the importance of their schemas That is why they would like to enhance their knowledge by different ways As a result, activating schema can be employed as an effective teaching method in facilitating learners’ reading competence, cognitive and affective variables.

CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS