الفهرس 
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Abstract
This study aimed to enhance Egyptian first year Language Secondary School students’ reading comprehension, idiom acquisition and culture awareness through schema-building activities. The present study adopted a quasi-experimental mixed-method design. Data was collected both quantitatively and qualitatively. Two intact classes were selected and randomly assigned to a control and an experimental group, 35 students each. The treatment lasted for three months and the two groups had the same teacher (the current researcher), duration of time, and course book. However, students of the experimental group benefited from schemabuilding activities before, while and after reading the selected material. To examine the effectiveness of schema-building activities, pre and post reading comprehension and culture awareness tests were administered to both the control and experimental groups. In addition, a semi-structured interview was applied by the end of the experiment to gain insights into the experimental group students’ opinions of using schema-building activities in EFL reading classes. The t-test for independent samples was used to compare the scores of the experimental and control groups on the posttest of reading comprehension and culture awareness. Results showed that implementing schema-building activities in EFL reading classes had significant effects on students’ overall reading comprehension and its subskills; literal, inferential and critical skills. Moreover, these activities facilitated students’ acquisition of idioms and raised their awareness of the target (British) culture. Furthermore, the qualitative analysis of students’ responses revealed their positive attitudes toward schema-building activities and their implementations in EFL classes.