Strategy-based Instruction On Cognitive Reading Strategies For Adult Junior College Students—An Action Research Approach

Reading strategies refer to strategies used by language learners aiming to improve their reading comprehension, which not only deal with some certain reading skills but also the selecting and controlling activities of carrying out a certain reading aim. This study chooses25adult junior college students as the research participants. The author has carried out16weeks’ cognitive reading strategies training in order to probe into the overall use of cognitive reading strategies by adult junior college students and the effectiveness of strategies training. This study is designed to answer the following three questions:(1) What is the overall use of cognitive reading strategies by adult junior college students?(2) Which strategy is the most frequently used before and after strategies training? Which strategy is the least frequently used?(3) How does strategy-based instruction on cognitive reading strategies affect adult Junior College students’reading proficiency?Based on the review of language learning strategies, reading process and reading strategies as well as the theoretical framework of action research, an action research on cognitive reading strategies training is carried out among25adult junior college students from October to December in2011. Firstly, the author has made initial reflection on why the students can not read efficiently. Secondly, the author applies pre-questionnaire and pre-test to identify the problem. Thirdly, according to the analysis of the pre-questionnaire and pre-test, the author designs the action plans of cognitive reading strategies training and implements the action plans. In the middle of the training process, the author uses a mid-training interview to get the students’reflection on reading strategies training and she makes some changes in her action plans to meet the students’ needs. Finally, at the end of the training, the author applies post-training questionnaire, post-test and post-training interview. By comparing the data before and after16weeks’cognitive reading strategies training, it is proved that using cognitive reading strategies training is helpful to improve the students’reading proficiency.The findings of this study are as follows:(1) Before receiving cognitive reading strategies training, the25adult junior college students’ overall use of cognitive reading strategies is only moderate. The frequency of "structure analysis" and "inference" is low. Meanwhile, the students are heavily influenced by bad reading habits.(2)"Skimming" is the most frequently used cognitive reading strategy. Before the training,"inference" is the least frequently used strategy. After the training, the frequencies of all the six cognitive reading strategies increase. The mean score of "structure analysis" is the lowest which indicates that the students still have difficulties in analyzing the sentence structure and the text’s structure.(3) Cognitive reading strategies training is helpful to improve the adult junior college students’ reading proficiency.This thesis consists of the following five chapters:Chapter One introduces the purpose, value and the structure of this study. Chapter Two sets a theoretical framework for the present study. Rationales of language learning strategies, reading process and reading strategies and the theories of action research are introduced. Chapter Three introduces the research design with research subjects, instruments, problem identification, plan of actions for reading strategies training and research questions. Chapter Four states the implementation of the action plans in details and also analyzes the reflection and results. Chapter Five is the conclusion of this study, in which major findings and pedagogical implications are discussed as well as limitations and suggestion for further research are expressed.