A Schema–Theory Based Study on the Improvement of the College Students’ English Writing

Abstract

College English Test-Band 4 is of great importance for non-English major students. However, some related survey shows that students’ writing competence in CET4 is far from satisfactory. Thus improving students’ writing ability has become the urgent task for English teachers and language scholars. The author carries on a ten-week empirical research on the application of schema theory to non-English majors’ EFL writing teaching. Before the experiment, 120 freshmen of non-English majors are randomly chosen as a sample. The subjects are divided into two groups. One is the control group, and the other is the experimental group. The former receives traditional English writing teaching mode. The latter receives schema-theory based writing training. The author goes on to make statistical treatments with questionnaires, the interview, the pretest and posttest in writing. The result shows: Schema-theory based writing training has a great effect on non-English majors’ writing ability, which also helps college students change their writing habits and writing mode. Their linguistic accuracy, content correctness and formal appropriateness have been achieved after schema-based writing training. The participants in experimental group hold a positive attitude toward the new way of writing
teaching.