Schemata and Listening Comprehension

The effectiveness of pre-listening activities to activate schema

Listening is an important skill in second language acquisition, research, teaching, and
assessment. It is a complex process and plays a significant role in the process of interlanguage
development. Since its importance in language learning and acquisition has been understood
well recently, the importance given to listening comprehension in second language pedagogy
has largely increased. Acquiring good listening skills in second language has been one of the
main concerns of language teaching. Krashens emphasis on the role of comprehensible input
was partly responsible for the importance given to listening comprehension.
Listening is now considered as an active skill that involves many processes. According to
Byrnes (1984) listening is a highly complex problem-solving activity. It has been
hypothesized that background knowledge and schemata plays a significant role in the
comprehension of this highly complex problem-solving activity. In this paper, the role of
schemata in L2 listening comprehension is investigated. The following literature reviews
attempt to demonstrate and support the hypothesis.
One of the important theories of learning is called schema theory, which has used in many
studies as it has a great unique impact. This is because of its influence on perception and
learners memory. The significance of schematic knowledge is now widely acknowledged in
foreign language teaching and many researches in the schema-oriented area of ESL/EFL
teaching have been carried out. This theory has various definitions and the three types of
schemata are content, formal, and cultural which are closely related to learners reading and
listening comprehension in acquiring L2.
During the 1970s, listening pedagogy largely emphasized bottom-up linguistic processing. It
is during this period that cognitive psychology began to focus on the individual as an active
processor of linguistic input. In the 1980s and 1990s, the status of listening began to change
since applied linguists began to benefit from the findings of cognitive psychology. They
borrowed the concepts bottom-up and top-down processing from the fields of cognitive
psychology and applied them to language learning. So they started to argue that both language
schema and knowledge schema are crucial for enhancing comprehension. This led to an
awareness of the significance of background knowledge and schema in comprehension. As a
result, it can be asserted that since the 1980s, listening pedagogy has focused on the linguistic
aspects of comprehension to schema-based view which stresses the importance of activating
learners background knowledge.
Schema theory is used by cognitive psychologists to explain the psychological process
involved in understanding and knowing. The role of background knowledge in language
comprehension has been formulized as schema theory. (Bartlett 1932; Rumelhart 1980 cited
in Carrell and Eisterhold, 1984) According to schema theory, comprehending a text requires
more than linguistic knowledge. A text, either spoken or written, does not by itself carry any
meaning, Comprehension, that is understanding words, sentences, entire texts, is an
interactive process between the readers background knowledge and the text. The listeners or
readers retrieve or construct meaning from their own, previously acquired knowledge. The
readers background knowledge, data structure of general ideas stored in memory and the
previously acquired knowledge structures are called schemataAccording to such a
principle, meaning exists neither in oral nor in written language itself. It is in the readers or
listeners mind.
Schema theory deals with the listening process, during which listeners are engaged in the
process of constructing meaning from the text they listened to based on their expectations,
inferences, intentions, prior knowledge. Liisteners combine their previous experiences and
pre-existing knowledge with the text they hear. Schemata decides on how listeners recognize
information. In fact, listening comprehension is the result of the interaction between bottom-
up and top-down listening skills. Listeners process a listening text through bottom-up and
top-down processes. They decode, that is construct a message from sounds, words, and
phrases through bottom-up skills by relying on their linguistic knowledge. They also make
inferences about what the speaker intended through top-down processing.
According to Carrel and Eisterhold (1984) schemata involved in comprehension can be
categorized into two major types: Formal schemata are the background knowledge of formal,
rhetorical organizational structures of different types of texts. Formal or rhetorical rhetorical
schemata refer to the article genre, and discourse structure knowledge, such as fables, poems ,
drama and other genres whereas Content schemata are the the background knowledge of the
content area of the text.
Today, researchers consider the role of schematic knowledge as one of the factors affecting
comprehension. However, schema-theoritical studies in L1 listening comprehension has dealt
with on limited themes: the effects of visual and verbal organisers, pre-established
background knowledge, story schemata, and imaginary training on comprehension, recall, and
learning. (Long, 1989) Applications of schema theory to L2 listening, on the other hand, has
remain largely unexplored. Only a limited number of research deals with the importance of
schema-based theory in the L2 listening pedagogy.
The importance of comprehensible input as a necessary factor in L2 language learning is
documented in the SLA literature. Krashen (1982) argued that the most effective way to teach
a second language is to give learners large amounts of comprehensible input in an
environment of low anxiety. Berne points out that familiarity with passage content facilitates
L2 listening comprehension. (1985) Likewise, Johnson claims that providing students with
background knowledge facilitates learning and understanding of unfamiliar texts (Johnson,
1982). Activating students stored knowledge structure (schemata) to enhance comprehension
and creating new schemata is important. Zeng (2007) posits that listening teaching process is
an information processing and storage process during which students need to apply the
available knowledge of the language, background knowledge and listening material
interaction. Actually, each new experience modifies our existing schemata. If faced with an
unfamiliar culture or discourse community, we create a new schema. This creation or
modification of schemata is an essential part of the listening process if the listener has indeed
learnt from an event. According to Kemp (2010) however, the effect is likely to be
cumulative. This is perhaps one reason why some teachers mistakenly believe that listening is
merely a matter of practice.
According to Zhang (2006), schema theory provides strong evidence for the effectiveness of
pre-listening activities. Pre-listening tasks are often designed so as to build or activate the
learners schemata. They also build up their expectations for the coming information, and
provide the necessary context for the specific listening task. This is because it is assumed that
if the listener does not possess the relevant schemata or does not activate the schemata,
comprehension cannot be fulfilled. They both provide an outline for listening to the text and
teach cultural key concepts.
In L2 listening research, there are some empirical studies that focus indirectly on the
relationship between background knowledge and L2 listening comprehension. Students
experience difficulties as they progressed in their second language. According to Rumelhart
(1997) the accumulation of schemata contributes most to efficient comprehension and
retention of new listening material. Valeri Ruhe explored how graphics can facilitate the
second-language lecture comprehension process. She suggests that graphics do more than
activate a schema in the prelistening stage. They can also be used in the listening stage to
enhance listening comprehension. Ruhes study suggests that graphics-based strategies can be
effective in improving listening comprehension. The graphics helps learners match the visual
information with the audio. Ruhe research indicates the importance of graphics-based
strategies to support the teaching of lecture comprehension. Visual organizers Mueller (1980)
investigated the effects of visual contexts on listening comprehension in beginning students of
German. He found that the students who had the contextual visual before hearing the passage
scored significantly higher on the recall measure than those in the visual-after and the no-
visual groups. His study also points out that the proficient learners have higher linguistic
abilities and therefore they need fewer visual contextual cues to activate their appropriate
schemata. Weissender, (1987) on the other hand, indicates the importance of both textual and
content schemata in a study of intermediate and advanced learners comprehension of Spanish
language newscasts. He found that both textual and content schemata help activate
comprehension of the new data. Bacons (1992) research regarding the effect of background
knowledge during listening process found learners benefit from previous knowledge during
listening. She reported that successful listeners tended to use their personal, world, and
discourse knowledge while less successful listeners either built erroneous meaning from their
prior knowledge or ignored it altogether.
Markham and Latham (1987) used passages to understand the effect of religious background
in listening comprehension and their data shows that religious background influences
listening comprehension. The participants in their experiment were much successful in
remembering about the passage that related to their own religion. The results revealed that
both religious background knowledge and captions contribute substantially to the
comprehension of university-level ESL students. The findings of Sadighi (2006) regarding the
supportive role of background knowledge are consistent with the findings of the majority of
L2 listening studies. He also concluded that activating students background knowledge
provided better comprehension. Chiang and Dunkel (1992) have shown that topic familiarity
enhances listening comprehension for low-level second-language learners. Visually based
contextual clues such as pictures and video have been found effective in activating
background knowledge and improving comprehension. A study by Baltova (1994)
investigated the role of video and/or sound in the processing of aural French as a second
language in grade-eight core French. Results indicate visual cues were informative and
enhanced general comprehension. Berne (1995) compared the effects of different pre-
listening activities on the listening comprehension performance of adult learners of Spanish as
a Foreign Language. While these findings are subject to several limitations, they suggest two
possible While these findings are subject to several limitations, they suggest two possible
Zeng (2007) found that university students could achieve better progress in listening ability
once some major obstacles in the listening procedure are removed through successful
activation and extending of schemata pertaining to L2 listening comprehension.
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