Enhancing students’ schematic construction of authentic-based structuring

Abstract

Considering the authenticity aspect of language and finding the best pedagogical ways to introduce it to learners is of great importance to foreign language learning. Language knowledge and comprehension during the process of learning plays a fundamental role in dealing with learners’ schematic conception. The latter is reflected in the conventional structure of knowledge required when processing the information. For this reason, the present research investigates the effect of introducing the authenticity of language on learners’ schematic knowledge in order to develop their critical thinking and problem-solving skill. In this respect, a corpus consisting of a variety of texts has been selected as an authentic frame of language knowledge to study the various contextual and rhetorical features needed in the network of comprehension and information processing. An experimental study with 120 informants from 3rd year undergraduate students of English (control group and experimental group) was conducted together with a questionnaire which was administered to the same informants in order to have an overview about their attitudes and schematic knowledge. The results after comparing both groups pre-test and post-test via the required statistical inferences have shown a remarkable improvement in the experimental group performance after the treatment. Hence, they confirm the hypothesis of this research and prove that the authenticity of language has a positive effect on students’ schematic knowledge. i