Schema theory is one of the theories of second language acquisition to learners’ background knowledge. It has a great impact in many studies since its influence on perception and learners’ memory. This theory has numerous definitions and consists of 3 types of schemata. They are content, formal and cultural.

Schema was introduced by Frederic Bartlett in 1932 while he was working on constructive memory (Psybox Ltd, 2002). He regarded schemas as a part o f top down processing. Furthermore, Ballet (1977 citied in Landry, 2002) describes schemata as building blocks of cognition that are used in the process of understanding sensory data, in repossessing information from memory, in organizing aims and sub goals in allocating resources, and in leading the flow of the processing system. What is more, Rumelhart claimed that if our schemata are unfinished and do not offer an understanding of the incoming information from the text we will have troubles processing and understanding the text (Psybox Ltd, 2002)

The schemata theory explains that the people do not observe any reality straight however just via a perceptual framework. For example, everybody has their own personal schema and when they get a perception they attempt to fit into their schema. The perceptual framework and the context provide meaning to what people perceive. Therefore, schema theory is significant in many areas for instance communication and learning. If people have their own or different schema it is potential to misunderstand each other. When a person says I like riding refereeing to horse and another may think he is saying he likes bicycle (Landry, 2002)

Schema is obtained and processed which deals with preexisting or prior knowledge that is store in mind

Applying multiple knowledge structures in Creative thought : effects on idea generation and problem-solving

By Samuel T. Hunter, Katrina E. Bedell Avers, Chase M. Hunsicker, and Michael D Mumford, Gina S. Ligon 2008

The potential importance of this issue becomes apparent when It is recognized that at least three distinct forms of knowledge have been identified that might be applied in creative thought 1) schematic knowledge (e.g Ward, Patterson & Sifonis, 2004) 2) associational knowledge (e.g Gruszka & Necka, 2002) and 3) case-based knowledge (e.g Scott, Lonergan, & Mumford, 2005)

One of the knowledge structures is schematic knowledge. it based on concepts and principles abstracted from past experience (Phye, 1990; Sakamoto & Love, 2004; Wisniewski, 1996). These concepts may be viewed as a set of categories where each catefory serves to organize a set of objects or exemplars, biased on set of underlying principles or feature (Bansalou, 1993; Estes & Ward, 2002) for example birds fly and have feathers. Schematic knowledge however not only entails principles for organizing, or establishing relationships within a category or concept, it also involves the construction of relationships linking different categories or concepts.

Schematic knowledge provides a basis of analogical problem-solving with the application of feature search and mapping mechanisms (Gentner, 1989; Hummer & Holyoak, 1997; Reeves & Weisberg, 1994). Baughman and Mumford (1995) in a study of conceptual combination, showed that feature search and mapping operation contributed to the generation of new concepts and creative problem solutions. Some support for this conclusion may be found in a more recent study by Ward, Patterson

and Sifonis (2004). More creative drawings were obtained when people were asked to apply abstract principles—the kind of abstract principles held to be embedded in schematic knowledge.

Key Concepts in ELT (ELT Jounal Volume 51/1 january 1997 oxford university press 1997)

Schemas

A schema is a mental representation of a typical instance. Schema theory suggests that people understand new experiences by activating relevant schemas (also called ‘schemata’) in their mind. They then assume unless there is evidence to the contrary, that the new experience conforms to their schematic representation. Schematic processing allows people to interpret new experiences quickly and economically, making intelligent guesses as to what is likely, even before they have explicit evidence.

Thus, if I tell you that ‘ I went to a restaurant last night.’ You are likely to assume (without being told) that I sat on a chair, order a meal, paid, and left. If you later discover that I sat on the floor, cooked the meal myself , robbed the till at gunpoint or stayed all night you will adjust your understanding accordingly. Schemas vary according to cultural norms and individual experience; whether restaurant are expected to serve alcohol, whether they are routine or special places to eat.

Schema theory was proposed by the gestalt psychologist Bartlett (1032) who observed how people when asked to repeat a story form memory, filled in details which did not occur in the original but conformed to their own cultural norms. The theory was futher developed in the Artificial intelligence work on perception and text processing during the 1970 (e.g Schank and Abelson 1977), where a number of terms of types of schema such as ‘scripts’ and ‘frames’ were also develop in the 1980’s, schema theory became an important component of discourse analysis (Sanford and Garrod 1981) reading theory (Carrell and Eisterhold 1983) and applied linguistics (Widdowson 1983, 1984).

Schema theory is important to language teaching because schematic knowledge is as essensila a component of successful communication as linguistic knowledge (Widdowson 1983). It can help explain students’ comprehension problem and suggest the kind of background knowledge they need. As well as this general relevance, schema theory also explains some more specific phenomena in language production and processing. The use of definite article with a noun, for example, can be determined by schematic expectation, even though the noun id being used for the first time: ‘we ordered a taxi. The driver took a long time finding the house’. Schema theory can also explain how we choose unconsciously between homonyms. We are unlikely to assume the sentence ‘The King put his seal on the letter’. To be about an aquatic mammal, because that is not the kind of seal in most ‘king schemas’ (Lehnert, quoted in Cook 1989).

The importance of schematic knowledge is now widely acknowledged in language teaching theory, and linked in particular t the importance of developing cultural knowledge in learners. It should be remember, however that while schemas allow humans to process communication fast without paying attention to every minor detail, they can often also be restrictive (Cook, 1994).a negative stereotype, for example is a schema which leads to refusal to perceive new information or to change one’s ideas. In unfamiliar situations, attention to the detail and a willingness to abandon and change our schemas are still the hallmarks of a flexible and open mind.