| Self-regulated learning (SRL) refers to the capability to control all aspects of one's learning. Exactly speaking, students can set appropriate goals, make study plans, select learning methods, control learning process and do self-assessment to gradually get developed. As far as reading is concerned, SRL learners have strong intrinsic motivation and show great interest in reading; they can set reading goals and make reading plans according to their present study; they make full use of reading strategies, effectively control their reading process and assess their learning results; they can also fully exploit all kinds of reading resources available. Present social development and school education have set higher demands for SRL capability. The newly published Criterion of New English Course lays great emphasis on reading, which shows the significance of SRL capability. Hence, exploring how to develop students' SRL capability in reading in EFL has become worthwhile.Our research is subdivided into seven major sections. The first section deals with the significance of our research, concerning the importance of SRL capability in reading and the present situation of high school English teaching of reading. Section two is a theoretical analysis of research in English reading by scholars from both home and abroad, from which we get a clear idea of what English reading is, English reading process, the levels of reading comprehension and the necessary skills and strategies of reading comprehension. Section three is a theoretical analysis of research and successful experience in SRL, thus throwing light on the connotation of SRL, several aspects necessary to SRL and models of developing SRL capability. In the end, the method of developing SRL capability in this research is put forward. In section four, we have a survey of high school students' SRL capability in reading, and through analyzing, make sure in which aspects students are self-regulated and in which aspects not self-regulated, laying a foundation for the following experiment. In section five, from a theoretical perspective five areas are stated to develop students' SRL capability. Section six is an experiment on developing students' SRL capability in reading consisting of the five areas mentioned in section five. In section seven, the last part of this research, some reflection and suggestions on English SRL in China are put forward.According to theoretical analysis, we suggest putting emphasis on developing students' reading skills and strategies in foreign language teaching of reading, and during the process, teachers should give systematic instructions to let students master and use some SRL strategies, which can be trained through lectures, concentrated training, everyday teaching and personal guidance. By the training of cognitive strategies, students are made sure to know about reading skills and strategies; by the training of meta-cognitive strategies, students gradually form the habit of setting appropriate reading goals, making reading plans, selecting reading methods, controlling reading process and doing self-assessment to become self-regulated comparatively.Results from empirical research show that the training of learning strategies can to some extent strengthen students' SRL capability in English reading and furthermore improve academic achievement. But it functions differently on different aspects of SRL. That is, it has marked effects on such aspects as motivation, learning strategies and learning resources. But for such aspects as setting goals, making plans, controlling process and doing assessment, we need a long-term and systematic training. |
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