Promoting Learner Autonomy In English Reading Through Metacognitive Strategy Training

As early as two thousand years ago, our ancient educationalist Confucius has pointed out that "Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and you have fed him for a lifetime." His argument has, in fact, shown the importance of developing learner autonomy. With the change from teacher-centeredness to learner-centeredness in education, learner-centeredness and learner autonomy have become a hot issue in the research of foreign language education. Autonomous learner training, as one of the main aspects in the research of learner autonomy, has attracted great attention. Nowadays, the number of college students in China is always on the rise. As a result, teachers have to face a class of 40 or 60 students, whose English proficiency varies a lot. So college students are supposed to do most of their studies by themselves. In order to adapt to the new teaching environment, teachers should consider how to foster students' ability to learn independently. This study proposes that effective engagement of learner autonomy training with the framework of metacognitive strategies will be effective to foster learner autonomy in English reading. In this study, the author designed the training program based on the previous research and also made some improvement and amelioration in order to make the training more effective.The present study aimed to explore the impact of metacognitive strategy training on autonomous English readers based on a nine-week experimental study. Subjects involved in the study were 87 first year non-English majors in Wuhan College of Technology, falling into experimental group and control group. Questionnaires and learner profiles served as the instruments in the study. The training procedures consisted of in-class instruction and after-class instruction including both signing learner profile & keeping reading diaries. Data obtained from the questionnaire were processed with SPSS 12.0 whereas data from reading diaries were transcribed, decoded, classified and analyzed.The study shows that the training with the framework of metacognitive strategies is helpful to foster and enhance learners' reading proficiency, metacognitive awareness and learner autonomy in English reading. However, according to the interviews with the teachers and students, we find that to help students stick to learner autonomy in a short time is really a tough task. More efforts should be made, and more time is needed. Based on the results, it is suggested that teachers should involve learners in critical thinking of their reading process. They should also play more important roles in helping students become autonomous and effective learners according to the English teaching in China and learning context.