Formal Schema Of Syntax

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

There are some common problems in junior middle school students: Most of students lack the knowledge of syntax. They feel hard in making sentences and using the proper words. Lots of them used to make a sentence in Chinese logic. However, we may also find the reason from these problems. That is, their consciousness of English sentence and their sense of the English language are weak. Thus, their expressions are restricted. And that’s why the sentences that they expressed are not local. Therefore, it is necessary for the teacher to help the students to activate and build up some syntactic formal schemata.

As we know, there are five basic sentence patterns in English. We can produce many long and complicated sentences bases on these five basic sentence patterns. The students should master these five basic sentence patterns before writing, and keep them in mind while writing. In order to let the students produce correct sentences, we may ask the students a question and let them discuss: How many basic sentence patterns are there in modern English? What are they? After the discussion, the teacher and the students may review the five basic sentence patterns and write some sample sentences together:

a. S-V structure:

Everybody laughed.

b. S-V-P structure:

The girl is a student.

c. S-V-O structure:

I bought a cake.

d. S-V-O-O structure:

She gives me a gift.

e. S-V-O-C structure:

Tom makes me laugh.

The students can produce more correct sentences after such kind of revisions. And if necessary, the teacher can also do some sentence expansion practice base on these five sentence structures. After the training, lots of the students have improvements in making sentences. They can not only make simple and short sentences, but also complicated and long sentences.

3.7.2.2 Help students to build up formal schema of paragraph

Paragraph is the basic unit of a discourse. A discourse is made up by paragraphs. Several sentences may make up a paragraph, while several paragraphs may make up a discourse. So, writing a good paragraph is the foundation for writing a good discourse. And as Leon Mones suggested, the best way to teach the students’ writing is to let them practice writing plenty of paragraphs. Since a paragraph contains nearly all elements of a discourse and it divides a discourse into smaller units, it is much easier for students to practice writing (Kphlan, 1986). Therefore, the teaching of how to right a good paragraph shall be one of the important parts of English writing teaching.

When we teach the students to write a paragraph, we may follow these steps: First of all, we may help the students to build up the formal schema of a paragraph: Topic sentence –supporting sentence –conclusion sentence. How to write these three sentences well and how to link them together are the key points for practicing writing a paragraph. Then, the teacher can give the students some sample writings, and ask the students to analyze and find out the topic sentence, supporting sentences and conclusion sentence. The form schema of paragraph in students’ mind will become much clearer after such kind of practice. After that, the teacher may also help the students to analyze if the topic of a paragraph is writable, if the supporting sentences are in detail and well organized and if the conclusion sentence has the functions of summarization, concentration, emphasis and etc. After the procedures of activating and building up the formal schema of paragraph, the students may master the skills of writing a paragraph well and lay a solid foundation for learning how to write a good discourse.

3.7.2.3 Help students to build up formal schema of discourse

Most people believe that the lack of the basic knowledge and the skills of writing is the reason for students’ poor writing. But besides that, one of the main reasons is that their knowledge of discourse and the logics of discourse are poor.

In the writing lessons, the teacher shall help students know about the structures of the English discourse and let them know about the feature of composing an English discourse. When students have the formal schemata of discourse in their mind, it will be much easier for them to write. So, it is important to help students build up relevant formal schemata of discourse. For example, the teacher may help students build up the schemata of how to write the four common writing genres (narration, description, argumentation and exposition). For instance, the English argumentation usually consists of three parts: the introduction, the body and the conclusion. The introduction usually is the viewpoints or opinions of the author toward a certain problem. The body is the explanations, reasons or basis for the author’s viewpoints or opinions. The conclusion may be written from the aspect of the fact or the aspect of the argument. The conclusion usually is the reemphasis of the author’s viewpoint and attitude.

Another reason for students’ poor writing is the obstacle of the transfer between Chinese thinking patterns and English thinking patterns. There is a difference between Chinese thinking patterns and English thinking patterns. Thinking patterns can vary from culture to culture because different people have different surroundings. Chinese culture is a typical collectivistic culture, but English-speaking countries have an individualistic culture. That is why the Chinese thinking pattern is different from the English thinking pattern.

Robert B. Kaplan in his researches summed up that most English people’s thinking pattern is a linear pattern which is known as "direction"(see Figure 3.2), while the Chinese people’s thinking pattern is turning and turning in a widening gyre (see Figure 3.3). If a Chinese student writes an article in a turning thinking pattern, his writings might make the English reader puzzled. Kaplan says that the discourse organization problem can be explained as the negative transfer from the discourse organization of the writer’s first language (Liu Shangfu, 1998).

Figure 3.2 Figure 3.3

Since there is a close relation between language and thought, many researchers suggest that we shall pay more attention to the differences in eastern and western thinking patterns because the thinking patterns will definitely affect our writings. As most of the junior students have just learnt English for very few years, they don’t understand the differences, they usually write a piece of English writing in their own thinking pattern. That’s why their writings are weird for English readers. If a student knows the difference between the eastern thinking pattern and western thinking pattern, he is like to write a more effective piece of English writing.

The students have to know the differences of the two different thinking patterns (formal schema of discourse) if they want to improve their writings. It’s important to train the students to writing in the English thinking pattern. In our English writing teaching, the teachers may help students construct the formal schema of an English discourse. The teacher may use some sample writings to show the different formal schemata of discourse between the Chinese writing and the English writing. It is very helpful for students to imitate writing when they know the different formal schemata.

3.7.3 Enrich student’s content schema

3.7.3.1 Practice writing in time, consolidate the schema

When the students have constructed the schemata of sentence, paragraph and discourse, the teacher may ask them to practice writing articles.

After the teacher has helped students construct their relevant schemata about a certain topic, the teacher may ask the student to write a similar writing of the topic. It can help students consolidate their schemata greatly.

Then, the next step is to enrich students’ content schema. It is difficult for a student to write a piece of writing if they don’t have enough content schemata. In other words, they have nothing to say. For example, a student may know how to compose an argumentation, but it will be difficult for him to write if he doesn’t know what he can write. Students need to accumulate enough materials for content schemata in their daily life. Without the relevant materials of the topic, a student may feel that he nothing to write or the writing may be boring. So, the teacher could help or guide the students to accumulate relevant writing materials before writing. The teacher shall also encourage students to enrich their content schema by themselves. Only in this way can the students have something to write when they are writing.

3.7.3.2 Enrich content schema by reading

Like the construction of the formal schema, the construction of content schema needs plenty of reading. We can build up our formal schema by detailed, careful and deepened reading, while the content schema is constructed by massive and broad reading. Teachers need to encourage the students to read actively and guide them to accumulate relevant materials while reading. In the teaching of the experiment class, the author asks every student shall prepare a note book for keeping the writing materials. For example, the students can collect any information about the weather, environment protection, hobbies, education and etc. In this way, the students will try to collect the relevant materials consciously while they are reading. As time goes by, the content schema in students’ mind is becoming more and more enriched and completed. If it can become a habit for their learning, it will also be very helpful for their writings.

3.7.3.3 Enrich content schema by discussion

The content schema of only one student might be poor. However, students may enrich their content schema by exchanging ideas and discussions. In the English writing teaching class, the teacher shall encourage the students to give out their viewpoints and to exchange their ideas. The discussion of the topic can activate the students’ mind and enrich their content schema at the same time.

3.7.4 The discipline on guiding the writing.

However, no matter what ways we used to guide the students’ writing, the teachers shall remember the following disciplines:

(1) Prewriting: Before the real writing, students can do lots of activities to warm up and to activate their relevant schemata, such as brainstorming, information gathering, outlining and etc. Students can also discuss the writing strategies. Create a map or a sketch to help the students to capture their ideas and order their thinking.

(2) Drafting: The first draft of writing is important. If students can write the first draft well, it will much easier for them to write a good paper and it will also build up their confidence. When the students are writing their first draft, the teacher shall observe the writing process of the students and prepare to help them at any time. Momentum is an important element when students focus on the development of meaning and the flow of ideas. Skills and forms are secondary when writing the first draft. Additional draft can be written to develop, organize and clarify their works. The teacher shall encourage the students to share their drafts to confirm or adjust their writing direction.

(3) Revising: Revising is a complex work, but it is an important step for completing the writing work. A good writing may need several revisions. Revising usually contains the peer-editing and self-editing. Students can decide what shall be deleted, added, modified or retained by revising. Revising is the general post-writing procedure. It usually contains editing and proof-reading. Editing is the revising of the ideas and forms. Proof-reading is the revising of sentence structures, spellings, punctuations and so on.

(4) Evaluation and commenting: It is one of the most important steps for teaching the writing but also the one step usually neglected by the teachers. The evaluating and commenting shall not only include the structure and content, but also the grammar, words and spellings. Effective evaluation depends on the teachers’ clear understanding of what students can do and what improvements students have made. Giving students meaningful feedbacks and encouragement shall be an important part of an effective evaluation.

Chapter IV Experimental Results and Discussions

In this chapter, the data collected before will be analyzed through SPSS from different perspectives, and the results of the data will also be discussed. The author here will tackle the two research questions mentioned in the introduction of the present thesis. Section 4.1 is the analysis of the questionnaire. The author explores whether schema theory is effective and teachable in junior English writing class through the survey of the questionnaire. In section 4.2, the author analyzes the results of the pre-test and post-test. In section 4.3, the author will discuss about the results of the interview.

4.1 Data Collection

4.1.1 Questionnaires

The author distributed 80 questionnaires to the students. All the questions are written in Chinese in order to make sure that it’s easy to understand for junior middle school students. In order to make sure that the students fully comprehended the statements, the author explained some of them. The questionnaires were collected one day later, and all students returned the questionnaires. Before the questionnaire survey, the author had explained the questionnaire would only be used for the research and asked them to complete the questionnaire carefully. These 80 questionnaires would be involved in the next step—data analysis of the questionnaires.

4.1.2 Pre-test and post-test

In order to prevent the intervening of the variables, the author divided the experiment into four stages. In every stage, there is only one months for training only one type of writing genre. At the beginning of every stage, there is a pre-test. After the pre-test, the training of applying schemata in English writing is carried out. And at the end of every stage, i.e. after the training, there is a post-test.

The first stage is the training of writing a narration. The second stage is the training of writing a description. The third stage is the training of writing an exposition and the last stage is writing an argumentation

4.1.3 Individual Interviews

The purpose of the individual interviews is to investigate if the schema theory is suitable for applying in the English writing, and to know if students have any benefits from the schema-oriented writing teaching.

4.2 Data analysis

4.2.1 Analysis of the questionnaire

After the questionnaire survey, the author has got a general understanding about the situation of the junior students’ English writing. It is really helpful for the author. And it also provides the author the direction of carrying out the empirical experiment. The followings are the analysis of the data collected:

No.

A

B

C

D

No.

A

B

C

D

1

20%

18%

15%

47%

13

34%

24%

22%

20%

2

0%

9%

28%

63%

14

24%

45%

17%

14%

3

7%

12%

36%

34%

15

9%

12%

46%

33%

4

24%

28%

27%

21%

16

10%

15%

27%

48%

5

41%

20%

19%

12%

17

8%

15%

28%

49%

6

44%

37%

9%

6%

18

15%

24%

34%

27%

7

26%

32%

27%

13%

19

19%

24%

27%

30%

8

59%

16%

13%

7%

20

20%

25%

29%

26%

9

43%

26%

16%

15%

21

35%

32%

20%

13%

10

39%

36%

20%

5%

22

13%

19%

31%

37%

11

39%

32%

21%

8%

23

8%

23%

28%

41%

12

36%

30%

25%

9%

24

65%

12%

15%

8%

Table 4.1 Data of the Questionnaire Survey

(1) Most of the students think the difficulties in English writing are both using words and making sentences (47% in Question 1). Students used to use the Chinese thinking pattern but seldom the English thinking pattern (63% in Question 2). And they sometimes (36%) or very few (34%) get benefits for learning English from reading books (Question 3). From the above three questions, we can know that most of the students are short of words and lack of syntactic knowledge and discourse knowledge in writing. In other words they lack of the relevant linguistic schema and formal schema in writing. They seldom enrich their relevant content schema by reading. So, it is feasible for the teacher to help students construct and enrich relevant schemata in the English writing teaching.

(2) When asked students how much time they spent in reading outside books per week (Question 4), 28% of them spent half an hour per week and 27% of them spent an hour per week. Apparently, it is not enough for the students. 32% of the students believe it is much easier to write a given topic with hints than to write a free topic (Question 7). That means students need directions in writing. They need content schemata to help them in composing a piece of writing. 59% of the students strongly agree it is very important of making correct sentences in English writing (Question 8). 43% of the surveyed students strongly agree it is very important to know about the grammar in English writing (Question 9). It shows that students have realized the importance of the knowledge of syntax and grammar. 36% of the students strongly agree it is better to have a general idea for the writing (Question 12) but 48% of the students never make an outline or a flow chart of idea before their writing (Question 16). That means the students knows it is better to make an outline for writing, but very few students will do it. So, it is an important part for the teacher to help them set up the habit of making outline of writing or flow chart of ideas.

(3) 30% of the students believe that a good writing should not only valued by its grammar (Question 19), and 29% of the students are not sure if a writing which is correct in both the usage of words and the grammar is a good writing (Question 20). That means the students’ judging of a writing good or bad is not only by the words or grammar, but also something more than these. When answering the question 24, 65% of the students said that they have tried to finish the teacher’s writing assignment on time. But 37% of the students express that they haven’t worked hard in learning English (Question 22). So, it is also important to keep students’ interests and momentum in learning English.

4.2.2 Analysis of the pre-test and post-test

This part is the analysis and comparison of the data of pre-test and post-test. Before the training, both the EG and CG took the writing pre-test. They were asked to do the test within 30 minutes. In order to get the real score of the students’ writing, students were told to finish the writing as honestly and carefully as possible. Students were also told that the data would be used for the research only. Then all the writing papers were collected and coded for analysis. The full score of the writing is 15.

4.2.2.1 Results of the independent-sample T test on the writing test

Before the training, the teacher arranged a test for both the EG and the CG. The data were analyzed by SPSS 8.0 to examine the discrepancies of the students’ performance between the two classes.

From the table 4.2, we can see the mean score of the CG is 7.325, while the mean score of the EG is 7.350. The two mean scores are nearly the same. The results also show that there is no significant difference (p=0.958>0.05) between the two groups in the English writing level. This reflects that the students’ English writing level is almost the same before this research, which also means the comparison between the pre-test and the post-test will be more effective and authentic.

Group

N

Mean

Std. Deviation

Std. Error Mean

t

Sig. (2-tailed)

Control Group

40

7.325

1.953137

0.308818

-0.053

0.958

Experimental Group

40

7.350

2.225148

0.351827Table 4.2 Results of the Independent-samples T Test in Writing Pre-test

In order to find the effectiveness of applying schema theory in students’ English writing and compare the improvement with their counterparts in the control group, both groups took part in the post-test after completing the training course. Table 4.3 shows the results of the independent-samples T test of the post-test. In this table, we can find the mean score of the EG is10.725, while the mean score of the CG is only 8.100. The mean score of the EG is obviously higher than that of the CG, which shows that there is a very significant difference (p=0.000<0.05) between the two groups in the English writing. The results also shows that the EG performed much better than the CG after the English writing training. Although English writing levels of both the groups are almost the same at the beginning of the training, the EG have made greater improvement than the CG after the training. From the results of analysis, we can know that the application of the schema theory in junior students’ English writing is effective, and schema theory can play an important role in improving the English writing.

Group

N

Mean

Std. Deviation

Std. Error Mean

t

Sig. (2-tailed)

Control Group

40

8.100

2.2848441

0.3613

-5.213

0.000

Experimental Group

40

10.725

2.218656

0.3508

Table 4.3 Results of the Independent-samples T Test in Writing Post-test

4.2.2.2 Results of the paired samples T test on the English writing tests

In order to find out the effectiveness of schema-oriented English writing teaching, a paired samples T test was carried out. It is used to examine the difference between pre-test and post-test respectively. It means that every group has had two tests. The result of the Table 4.4 shows that there is significant difference (p=0.004<0.05) between the pre-test and post-test in the CG. From Table 4.5, we can find there is also significant difference (p=0.000<0.05) of the EG. Compare the two tables, we can find that the significant difference of the EG is much more obvious than that of the CG.

Pair 1

Paired Differences

t

df

Sig. (2-tailed)

Pre-test & Post-test

Mean

Std. Deviation

-3.016

39

0.004

-0.775

1.6249

Table 4.4 Results of the Paired Samples T test on CG

Pair 1

Paired Differences

t

df

Sig. (2-tailed)

Pre-test & Post-test

Mean

Std. Deviation

-23.7982

39

0.000

-3.375

0.8969

Table 4.5 Results of the Paired Samples T test on EG

From the analysis of the above, we may conclude that the EG has made more improvement than the CG. And the improvement is attributed to the extra schema-oriented writing instruction. As the CG is only taught in the traditional way, the improvement is not so obvious. Therefore, the schematic writing training has contributed to the promoting of the students’ writing level. By now, we can assume that the achievement of such great progress in the EG correlates highly with the schematic writing training. Schema theory is suitable and efficient to improve students’ English writing. For the CG, slight improvement was made, yet not reaching the point of EG. The slight improvement of the CG is not only attributed to students’ the interest and motivation of learning English writing, but also the students’ effort in learning English writing. This shows that the traditional writing teaching method can also improve students’ English writing slightly, but not as greatly as the schematic writing teaching method.

4.3 Individual Interview

The interview involves 10 students from the experimental group. There are nine questions in the interview. Question 1 to question 5 is "Yes/No" question. The last question is a multiple choice question. Here is the summary of the interview.

(1) Nearly all of the 10 interviewed students say "yes" to the question 1- 5. This shows that the students’ attitude toward the schema-oriented teaching approach is positive. They can have a clear concept of schema and their interest in English writing is aroused. The students express that they would like to be teach in the same way next semester, because they have got a great improvement in the post-test of the English writing.

(2) As to question 6 and question 7, six of the interviewed students think it is more helpful to activate and construct their schemata by reading. The reason is that they can enrich their linguistic schema and content schema of a topic at the same time by reading. Also, they can learn the formal schema of a passage easily by reading.

(3) Question 9 is a multiple choice question. Five of the interviewed students choose the answer B. They believe that the schematic approach is particularly helpful in organizing the article when they are writing. Three of the students choose the answer A. They think schemata are helpful in choosing the proper words and widening their vocabulary.

From the above analysis and discussion, the author would like to summarize the effects of schema-oriented teaching approach. The improvement of formal schema through this teaching approach is much easier. But it is relatively less significant on the development of content. This is because the development of the content need a longer time for the students to accumulate the relative information. And the improvement of using the proper word is also not significant, as the students need longer time to learn the usage of the newly gained words.

Chapter V Conclusions

We have discussed in the previous chapters the feasibility of the application of schema-oriented teaching approaches of English writing in junior middle school. In this section, the author will conclude the results of the experiment and the implications of the study. Limitations of the present study as well as suggestions for further researches will also be put forward.

5.1 The Results of the Experiment

From the analysis and discussion of the above, we can find that it is efficient on applying the schema theory into the English writing teaching. Schematic teaching approach makes the English writing teaching more abundant, flexible and relaxing. Here are the main findings of the study:

(1) Compared with the traditional English writing teaching approach, the schematic English writing teaching approach can improve students’ English writing more significantly. Though the traditional English writing teaching approach can improve students’ English writing, it is not as obvious as the schematic approach.

(2) Students who are taught with the schematic approach show more interests in the English writing. They find more pleasure in the English writing.

(3) The schematic approach is particularly helpful in organizing the article when students are writing. Students who have the schematic writing training can organize their writing better. Students can have a clearer structure of the writing by using the formal schema.

(4) It is much easier to improve students’ formal schema through the schematic teaching approach. But it is relatively less significant on the development of content.

(5) It also improved the students’ general writing ability as well as other language skills. The achievements enhanced students’ confidence, which will encourage them to write extensively. The success in the development of writing ability facilitated students’ other language learning skills such as listening, speaking and reading.

The confirmation of the hypotheses has a practical significance in junior middle school students’ English writing teaching. The teacher can improve students’ English writing by applying the schema theory in their daily teaching. We can help students cultivate their schema in two ways: One is to help students activate or construct the schema that they are lack of by intensive reading. The other way is to help students enrich their schema by extensive reading, exchanging ideas or discussion.

5.2 Implications of the Study

From the analyses of the result of the study, we can also find some implications for our English writing teaching.

(1) Helping the students to build up their relevant formal schema of a certain writing genre can improve students’ skills of organizing their writing. Once the students have constructed the relevant formal schema, it will be much easier for them to write. Teachers can guide their students to activate or construct their schema consciously.

(2) Try to enrich students’ content schema as possible. As students need a pretty long time to enrich their content schema, it is better if the teachers can guide their students to accumulate relevant information or knowledge consciously. It can help them in their writing in the future.

(3) Writing with the formal schema. It is much easier for the students to write if there is an outline or a flow chart of ideas (i.e. the formal schema of discourse). The teacher shall encourage the students to practice writing according to the schema as much as possible, until it become their own schema. The writing practice can facilitate their understanding and using of the schema.

In conclusion, schema theory can have an instructional effect on helping junior middle school students’ English writing. So, we shall try our best to activate students’ existed schema and to construct the schema that they are short of. At the same time, we shall pay attention to students’ accumulation of the linguistic schema and content schema, and help them to form the English thinking pattern consciously. And finally, let students have their own schema by continuous writing practice.

5.3 Limitations and Further Studies

Though the experiment is successful, it must be admitted that there are some limitations in this research. First of all, the experiment is only carried out in the author’s teaching school. The result of the experiment might have the limitation of location. Second, the samples collected in this study are not large enough. There are only 80 questionnaires collected and only 10 students of the experimental group interviewed. The results cannot be extended to all the other students. Third, the investigation conducted is based on the other researchers’ study, especially the theoretical foundation. The schematic writing teaching approach adopted in this study is quite time-consuming, it needs to be improved. And new efficient writing teaching approaches also need exploring. Last but not least, the author finds that the initiative and motivation of the subjects are hard to be controlled, but they can affect the results of the experiment. Thus, how to find a good way to control the intervening variables needs further studies.

Whatever the credits or limitations are, this study is an academic effort to apply the schema theory to junior middle school students’ English writing. Thus, it is open to any suggestions or criticisms.