LINGUISTIC SCHEMA: A CATALYST FOR IMPROVING JSS TWO STUDENTS PERFORMANCE IN READING FOR LITERAL COMPREHENSION IN ZARIA METROPOLIS

Vol 2, No 1 SEPTEMBER, 2023: Language Review: An International Journal of Linguistics (LRIJL) 1 LINGUISTIC SCHEMA: A CATALYST FOR IMPROVING JSS TWO STUDENTS PERFORMANCE IN READING FOR LITERAL COMPREHENSION IN ZARIA METROPOLIS BY NMADUMELU OBI DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH, FEDERAL UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION, ZARIA 08039317325 [email protected] & ANDOKARI ZAKU JAMES DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH, FEDERAL UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION, ZARIA 08034782013 [email protected] DOI : https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17715226 Abstract It is an undisputed fact that reading remains one of the most central skills in the success of any educational pursuit. This paper therefore, x-rays the effects of linguistic schema on the performance of JSS two students in reading for literal comprehension in Zaria metropolis. In doing this, one objective, one research question, and a hypothesis were formulated. A reading comprehension test was administered to the students comprising an experimental and control groups. The population of the study constituted 32 public schools in Zaria Local Government Area of Kaduna State from which schools were selected as the sample groups. A purposive random sampling technique was adopted for the study. Data collected were analyzed using inferential statistics and was used to answer the research question raised for the study. Based on the findings of the research, it was recommended that schema theory (linguistic schema) be adopted as the primary mode in teaching reading for literal comprehension. Similarly, English language teachers should take the advantage of schema theory technique for developing students reading comprehension ability. Key words: Reading, Reading Comprehension, Schema Theory and Linguistic Schema LINGUISTIC SCHEMA: A CATALYST FOR IMPROVING JSS TWO STUDENTS PERFORMANCE IN READING FOR LITERAL COMPREHENSION IN ZARIA METROPOLIS 2 Introduction t is so disheartening that the general performances of second language learners’ reading comprehension are declining. Hence, government, language teachers, parents and public examination bodies are seriously frowning at the situation. The situation has been one of the disturbing aspects of the Nigerian educational system today. Language learning includes four dimensions: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. The present research focuses on the dimension of reading as it relates to Linguistic schema. Effective reading strategies help build reading meta-cognition and increase reading comprehension. Reading comprehension has been regarded as an important academic language skill (Grabe and Stoller, 2001; Gu, 2003) and has received a lot of attention in second language teaching, it is essential particularly to many English as a foreign language learners that rarely have a chance to speak English in their daily lives. Schemata are the underlying connections that allow new experiences and information to be aligned with previous knowledge (McCarthy, 1991:168). Hence, schemata can be categorized into three types-content, formal, and linguistic. They are all in any text and a reader’s experience affects interpretation. Not possessing the proper schema or being unable to activate it leads to inaccurate constructs. During the reading comprehension process, the reader is actively trying to make sense of the relevant written text by integrating previous relevant experiences (schemata) with the text information. Yu-hui(2010) proposed three possible reasons why students cannot understand a text: first, students lack proper schema. Second, students may possess adequate schema, but the author does not provide enough clues to activate the schema. Third, students interpret the text in a consistent way but deviate from the author’s intention. A number of studies on second language learning reading show some common obstacles encountered by learners. Most students at the secondary school level are uninterested in reading and they have poor reading habit (Agumanu; 1980, Ikonta; 2004 and Odumuh; 2004). According to most teachers of English in a second language context like Nigeria, most students read very slowly as a result of their inability to relate their previous experience or failure to activate their schemata (linguistic schema) to the present text that they are reading. They do not know how to guess the meaning of the unfamiliar words. Similarly, studies by White, Graves and Slatter (1990) I Vol 2, No 1 SEPTEMBER, 2023: Language Review: An International Journal of Linguistics (LRIJL) 3 have shown that poor readers often lack adequate vocabulary (linguistic schema) to understand what they read from a text. Consequently, reading is difficult and tedious for them. Their poor experiences with reading and linguistic schema set them into a cycle of frustration. This research therefore is aim at finding out the effects of linguistic schema on Junior Secondary School Two student’s performance in reading for literal comprehension. Research Question Referring to the primary objective of the study, the main research question raised is as follow: i. What is the effect of linguistic schema on JSS two students performance in reading for literal comprehension? Research Hypothesis Below is the hypothesis formulated for the study: i. Linguistic Schema has no significant effect on JSS two students performance in reading for literal comprehension. Review of Related Literature Reading and Reading Comprehension Reading is a receptive skill that is meant to go hand in hand with comprehension. It can be construed as the coordinated execution of a number of processing stages such as word encoding, lexical access, assigning semantic roles, and relating the information in a given sentence to previous sentences and previous knowledge. It involves different activities such as eye movement, word recognition, speech, comprehension and vocabulary, (Olaofe and Masembe, 2006; Azikiwe, 1998). What this means in essence is that when we read, we use our eyes to view written symbols and we use our brain to convert them into words, sentences and paragraphs that communicate something to us. Reading comprehension on the other hand, is the act of constructing meaning while interacting with texts. Amah (1999:83) sees reading comprehension as “an exercise aimed at improving or LINGUISTIC SCHEMA: A CATALYST FOR IMPROVING JSS TWO STUDENTS PERFORMANCE IN READING FOR LITERAL COMPREHENSION IN ZARIA METROPOLIS 4 testing a learner understanding of a written language”. It is the ability of the reader to notice pieces of text that relate to their past experiences. Comprehension reflects who people are, how they relate to the world and others in it, their accumulated store of factual and intuitive knowledge, the social environment in which they are reading, and even how they feel in a given day (Ruddell, 2002).It is the process of deriving meaning from connected text. Olaofe and Masembe (2007:1) assert that, “the essence of reading comprehension teaching and learning is to develop the skills of appreciating what is written because we read for meaning. From the reviewed above, it can be deduced that reading comprehension is best achieved when a reader is actively involved in the reading process by using his/her prior knowledge to interpret an author’s message. Schema Theory Recent research on second language reading put a great emphasis on the role of background knowledge, which has been formalized as schema theory. There are various ways of defining schema. Schema views reading as depending on the integration of new knowledge with a network of prior knowledge. Bartlett explained the term “schema” as “an active organization of past reactions, or of past experiences, which must be always supposed to be operating in any welladapted organic response” (Clapham, 1996:17).In the same vein, it is a cognitive constructs which allows for the organization of information in a long-term memory. Thus, it is a large complex units of knowledge that organize much of what we know about general categories of objects, classes of events, and types of people (Widdowson; 1983 and Van Dijk; 1983). According to schema theory, a text itself does not carry meaning rather it provides directions for readers as to how they should construct meaning from their own previously acquired knowledge, or background knowledge. Therefore, comprehending a text is an interactive process between the reader’s background knowledge and the text. Background knowledge is made up of a person’s experiences with the world (including what he or she has read), along with his or her concepts for how written text works, including word identification, print concepts, word meaning, and how text is organized. Research has shown that Vol 2, No 1 SEPTEMBER, 2023: Language Review: An International Journal of Linguistics (LRIJL) 5 readers’ existing knowledge is critical in determining their ability to comprehend what they read. Schema theory view reading as an active process which assist a reader in constructing meaning through connecting old knowledge or schemata with the new information being presented in the text. Three main areas of schemata connected to reading comprehension are Linguistic, content and formal schema. This paper has its focus on Linguistic schema. Linguistic schemata refer to readers’ existing language proficiency in vocabulary, grammar and idioms. They are the foundation of other schemata. Linguistic knowledge plays an essential part in text comprehension without which it is impossible for the reader to decode and comprehend a text. Therefore, the more linguistic schemata a reader has in his mind, the faster the reader acquires information and the better understanding the reader may get. The more linguistic schemata in a reader’s mind, the faster he can acquire information and the better he can comprehend.Linguistic schema is also called abstract schema (Nassaji, 2002; Oller, 1995 cited in Etren and Razi; 2009) orstory schema (Mandler; 1984 cited inErten and Razi, 2009). The review reveals that comprehension of any kind depends largely on the amount of schematic knowledge (linguistic) readers posses. Linguistic schema reviewed above, reveals that when a reader poses good knowledge of sounds combined to form words, the task of reading comprehension is reduced because it is the foundation of other schemata. Schema Theory and Reading for Literal Comprehension Reading for literal comprehension refers to the ability of students to understand what is overtly stated in the text. This requires the knowledge the learners acquired from the text which does not apply to the knowledge and the experience of the reader (Yusuf, 1996; Olaofe, 1983 and Grellet, 1981). When the writer makes false assumptions about the extent to which the reader is likely to share his knowledge, belief, the reader may be conscious of having struggled to understand which may sometimes fail. Reading is worthless unless students understood what they read. Literal comprehension involves relating the words and clauses in the sentences to other information in the text. Literal comprehension questions are those whose answers are directly and explicitly available in the text. The reader, in this type of comprehension exercise is required to get the primary or direct dictionary meaning of a word or an idea from the passage. The required information can be LINGUISTIC SCHEMA: A CATALYST FOR IMPROVING JSS TWO STUDENTS PERFORMANCE IN READING FOR LITERAL COMPREHENSION IN ZARIA METROPOLIS 6 easily extracted from the linguistic output of the text. The intended literal message is read and then sent to the mental faculty as an input that should only be accepted and regurgitated without making any attempt to modify, clarify, critique etc. Each sentence of a connected discourse contains some new information as well as some old information that are redundant with the preceding sentences (Halliday, 1994 and Joanne, 1996). The new information fulfilled the function of communicating new knowledge. But how does the reader knows what information is old and which is new? The distinction must be communicated because the two kinds of information are treated quite during literal comprehension. There are different linguistic devices that signal constituents that are old and new. In some cases, the linguistic structure that the writer uses depend upon what he thinks his reader already knows and what he is trying to communicate as new information. Halliday (1994) suggested that the information marked as old in a sentence should usually correspond to the pointer. This demonstrates the fact that, such correspondences facilitate comprehension by examining some linguistic schema structures, formal schema patterns and perhaps the content of a discourse that explicitly marked the old and the new information in a sentence. In reading instruction, we often talks about three different kinds of connections that readers make to the text: Text-to-Self When a reader makes a text-to-self connection, he is drawing upon his own personal life experiences to connect with the text. For example, a reader may say, “Hey”, I have been to the beach before and my dad and I walked along the shore looking for starfish prior to reading a book about the seashore. Questions that facilitate making text-to-self connections: Has this or something like this ever happened to me? How similar or different is this to my life? What does this remind me of in my own life? Text-to-Text Vol 2, No 1 SEPTEMBER, 2023: Language Review: An International Journal of Linguistics (LRIJL) 7 A text-to-text connection occurs when a reader makes a connection between a text that he will be or is reading to another text. A reader may make a connection between texts written by the same author, a story of a similar genre, or another book or article on the same topic.Questions that facilitate making text-to-text connections: Does this remind me of another book I have read? Have I read about this topic before? How is this similar or different from other texts I have read? Text-to-World A reader makes a text-to-world connection when he connects what he is reading to ideas and events occurring in the world. Readers have ideas of how the world works that go beyond personal experiences and what was read in previous texts. Readers learn about the world and events through a variety of media and other means such as conversations with others. Using Schema Theory to Develop Reading Comprehension The following are the steps for developing reading comprehension via schema theory as suggested by the researcher: i. Decide on the reading comprehension passage (topic) ii. Engage the students in thorough brainstorming around the topic iii. Write down related lexical items based on the brainstorm iv. Discuss issues that are related to the reading comprehension passage v. Allow the students to visualize round related issues discussed-drawing inferences or mental picture of the text which is about to be read vi. Reading of the comprehension passage properly vii. Carry out comprehension monitoring: This involves checking or noticing what you are doing when you are reading and also being aware of how you do it (also called meta-cognition or thinking about how you read). viii. Make a text-to-self connection of what you are reading by drawing upon your personal life experience ix. Make a text-to-text connection by relating text A (Previous text studied) with text B (Present reading comprehension text) LINGUISTIC SCHEMA: A CATALYST FOR IMPROVING JSS TWO STUDENTS PERFORMANCE IN READING FOR LITERAL COMPREHENSION IN ZARIA METROPOLIS 8 x. Make a text-to-world connection by relating ideas or events you are reading with the world (content schema) xi. Recall: Think about important points you read about and connect to other experience to increase your comprehension ability xii. Attempt the reading comprehension questions Theoretical Frame work The reading process is largely unconscious. People are aware of the outcome of comprehending a text but not how the outcome was achieved. The theory of reading is based on connection made so as to simulate the reading process at a level that intuition does not easily penetrate. This study however, relies strongly on schema theory as discussed above. Research Methodology This study adopted Quasi-experimental design which will comprise of two groups. Control group and experimental group. Population and Sampling Procedure All the Junior Secondary School students in Zaria Local Government Area of Kaduna State constituted the target population for the study. The study utilized purposive random sampling. Government Junior Secondary School Gyallesu and Government Junior Secondary School Aminu are selected out of the entire population for the study and it is considered adequate because it met the statistical requirements of population sampling according to Fowler (1988). The students that form the sample population were purposely drawn from JSS 2. Table 3.1: Number of students Drawn from Schools Vol 2, No 1 SEPTEMBER, 2023: Language Review: An International Journal of Linguistics (LRIJL) 9 Schools Number of Student Per class Number of Students drawn from each Group GJSS Aminu JSS 2A 2B 2C 89 90 91 60 GJSS Gyellesu TOTAL 90 97 93 179 187 184 60 120 Table 3.1 indicated that 120 students were drawn from both school. This is because the entire population cannot be studied as it would have adverse effect on the efficiency of the analysis. 60 of which formed the experimental group, while the other 60, the control group. JSS 2A, B and C in GJSS, Aminu are the experimental groups while 2A, B and C in GJSS, Gyallesu are the control groups respectively. Research Instrument In order to determine the effects of linguistic schema on JSS student’s performance in reading for literal comprehension, the instrument used for this study is a reading comprehension test. Data Collection Procedures The method of data collection involves administering of reading comprehension test to the sampled students. In administering the instrument to gather data, procedural steps will be taken. Step One: Pre-Test A passage will be taught by the sampled teacher in the two schools. Teachers will use the techniques they normally employ to teach reading comprehension after which comprehension questions will be administered to test how well students understood the passage. Marks awarded will be properly filed. The essence of the pre-test is to determine the students’ preliminary reading ability before conducting treatment Step Two: Treatment