Creating Experience Out of Nothing

In the field of psychology, schema refers to the pre-existing thoughts and ideas a person has that serve to organize their perceptions of the world. Psychologists like Bartlett and Kant in the 1930s, followed by Jean Piaget in the 1960s, pioneered and refined the idea of knowledge of the world around us being organized as structures or schemas in the mind. In childhood we build these schemas, or schemata, and use them to interact with new knowledge or concepts. In a way, we create a filing system in our minds to speed up our ability to interact with the new and exciting world around us. <br/><br/>In traditional Language Arts teaching, the importance of activating schema is a core concept in teaching reading. The idea that students will get more out of a piece of literature after they have spent a little time thinking about the ideas or themes to be found in it is widely accepted. Pre-reading questions that prompt students to access what they already know about a subject can lead to greater enjoyment and understanding of a piece of literature. In fact, lessons in critical thinking try to teach the habit of thinking deeply about what we already know of topics before we read anything that might have been made to influence us in any way. It is this comparison between what we already know and what we are now reading, that creates the gaps where unique concepts and knowledge can poke through. <br/><br/>When the concept of activating schema is transferred to the field of second language instruction, it changes slightly. Instead of activating prior knowledge for the benefit of enriching the enjoyment and understanding of a theme, this prior knowledge is activated so it can be used to mentally anchor the second language to the pre-existing first language. For the second language learner, the calling to consciousness of what is already known can be used as the platform where newly acquired vocabulary and grammar can be placed. In fact, I would go so far as to say that without this platform, what we build as language teache