As English has become the global language, it is necessary for us to have the ability to understand written English and spoken English. However, we can't deny the fact that reading is still the most important part of learning English in our EFL environment. English reading instruction in Korea has so far put too much stress on the learning of vocabulary and grammatical rules. For this reason, students' reading abilities have not been improved in terms of their efforts and time in reading. So, teachers must understand the process of reading comprehension to improve the methods of English reading instruction. The purpose of this study is to suggest the effective teaching methods for improving English reading comprehension based on schema theory. This study consists of four chapters. The first chapter begins with the introduction and scope of the study. The second chapter deals with the theoretical backgrounds of reading : the definition of reading, the reading methods and schema theory. The third chapter presents the stages of reading and related performances. : pre-reading activities, while-reading activities, post-reading activities. In the last chapter, there is the conclusion of this study and an opinion about the way of teaching English for reading.
So as to investigate the effect of schema activation on the improvement of students' reading comprehension, it is needed to find out the effective way of improving reading comprehension through pre-reading activities like picture showing and key-word association activity. Pre-reading activities provide prior knowledge to students and it helps to understand the contents of reading materials in advance.
In conclusion, it is recommended that teachers should realize the importance of prior background knowledge and use various pre-reading activities considering the level of students when they apply the schema theory to reading instruction.