An Experimental Study On Reading Strategy Training Of English Majors

Reading strategies play an essential role in improving English majors'reading ability and achieving their reading targets. Besides, it is valuable to discover the most appropriate way of reading to oneself and strengthen the ability of independent learning. At present, the most descriptive studies of reading strategies focus on the application of reading strategies between successful and unsuccessful learners and correlation between strategy use and reading achievements. There are not too much studies on the training of reading strategies of English majors in the Normal University and its results. Therefore, the author of this thesis intends to testify whether it is necessary and effective to improve English majors'reading ability by providing them with reading strategies.The experiment in this thesis centers on the training of certain reading strategies in English majors'extensive reading course. The experiment begins with a reading strategy questionnaire on the English majors and involves training and instructing the subjects in grasping and applying reading strategies in their study. By integrating reading strategies training with strategies-based instruction, the experiment aims to test the feasibility of new method in teaching extensive reading. 70 freshmen of English majors had been selected randomly from two classes in Grade 2008 and the experiment last for a year. One is experiment class and the other is control class. Each of the classes consists of 35 freshmen. The freshmen of the experiment class were divided into three proficiency levels in the light of their English performance in the reading comprehension pretest (high level, intermediate level and low level). The author investigated the freshmen's awareness and the application of reading strategies through the reading strategy questionnaire. Through SPSS 13.0, the scores of the pre-questionnaire and post-questionnaire of both the experiment class and the control class were analyzed. The results show that the freshmen's application of reading strategies mean scores of the experiment class and the control class in the pre-questionnaire are similar. In post-questionnaire, the freshmen's application of reading strategies in experiment class is obvious higher than that of the control class. Then the author compared the tests results of the freshmen in the experiment class and those in the control one so as to discover the relationship between the reading strategy training and the corresponding test results. The results of the pretest show that the mean scores of the freshmen in both the experiment class and the control one are similar. The results of the posttest show that the mean scores of the freshmen in the experiment class are obvious higher than those of the control one. In the experiment class, the scores of the freshmen of high level, intermediate level and low level in pretest and posttest were analyzed by SPSS 13.0. The results show that the improvement is not statistically significant for the freshmen of high level; the improvement becomes significant for the freshmen of intermediate level and low level. The reading ability of freshmen of the low level improved more than those in the intermediate level and high level. Then, the author discussed the results and limitation of the present study. Furthermore, suggestions for future research in the training of reading strategies were presented.