Application Of Meta-cognitive Strategies In English Reading In Senior High Schools

Reading comprehension is an important skill in language learning, and theimprovement of reading ability is one of the ultimate learning goals. The situation isthat students educated under the traditional reading instruction lack autonomousreading abilities, because this teaching model overemphasizes language knowledge,but neglects to develop students’ reading ability. Thus, students need instruction andtraining on reading strategy so as to improve their reading abilities.Reading is a process of psycholinguistic activity. During the process, readersplan and verify their reading activities on the basis of background knowledge.Therefore, strategies should be involved to monitor the reading process andappropriate strategies should be adopted to solve cognitive problems. Meta-cognitionis generally regarded as consciously using meta-cognitive knowledge to plan, arrange,monitor, regulate and evaluate the learning. Therefore, meta-cognitive strategy isimportant in reading process.Based on the researches on meta-cognitive strategies abroad and at home, andaccording to meta-cognitive strategies training theories of O’Malley and Chamot andOxford, the study investigated the level of students’ meta-cognitive knowledge andmeta-cognitive strategies use, and then it explored how the training of meta-cognitivestrategy can be integrated into English reading instruction of senior high school. Itsaim is to enhance the students’ awareness of meta-cognitive use in English reading andto improve their English reading proficiency. Thus, in order to find out whether theinstruction of meta-cognitive reading strategy in classroom contributes to theimprovement of the students’ reading proficiency or not, by adopting the quantitativeresearch method such as questionnaire and tests, the author conducted the experimentof meta-cognitive strategy training in English reading lessons for16weeks among the120students from two classes in Grade Two in No.2senior high school of Luoyangcity, Henan province, one class for experimental class, and the other for controlled class. The experimental class received the training of meta-cognitive reading strategiesfor16weeks, while the students of controlled class were taught under the traditionalteaching method. The author conducted a statistic analysis of the collected dataincluding independent samples t-test, paired samples t-test and Pearson correlationthough software SPSS17.0. The findings of the study showed that the subjects showlittle knowledge of meta-cognitive knowledge and they do not use the meta-cognitivestrategies in English reading frequently. The meta-cognitive strategy training doesenhance the participants’ meta-cognitive strategy awareness and improve their readingproficiency. In addition, the study also proves that students’ use of meta-cognitivestrategy is closely related to their reading proficiency. Those students who use meta-cognitive strategies more frequently in reading get higher scores in the reading testthan those who sometimes or generally not use the meta-cognitive strategies in reading.The present study reinforces the existing theories that meta-cognitive strategiesplay a positive part in foreign language reading and meta-cognitive strategy training ishelpful to enhance the students’ meta-cognitive strategy awareness and improve theirreading proficiency. It instructs the students to read and learn independently, and it isalso inspiring in some way for the future study on the reading teaching and on how toconduct meta-cognitive strategy instruction.