Metacognitive Strategy Training And Its Effects On Junior Middle School Students’English Autonomous Learning

With the development of the society and the reform of English education, the traditional "teacher-centered" teaching concept can not meet the requirement of education development any more. The current education system pays more attention to the cultivation of student’s subjectivity, and advocates the "student-centered" educational idea. Cultivation of students’ English autonomous learning ability is an important part of realizing "students-subjected" education, and is the embodiment of the students’sustainable development ability. Learning strategy is the key to promote autonomous learning while metacognitive strategy is the key to learning strategy. Therefore, conducting the research about metacognitive strategy training and its effects on junior middle school students’autonomous learning has extremely vital significance in promoting English teaching, and improving students’English achievements and autonomous learning ability.First of all, the author adopts the method of literature survey to generalize the research achievements of autonomous learning, metacognitive strategies, and the relationship between them at home and abroad. Then based on the metacognitive theory and the constructivism learning theory, the author puts forward the hypothesis of this study, namely junior middle school students’autonomous learning ability and their English learning achievements can be improved through metacognitive strategy training.Secondly, the author researches and analyzes the present situation of junior middle school students’autonomous learning ability by using the self-made Questionnaire of Junior Middle School Students’English Autonomous Learning Ability in the third secondary school of Baihe, Ankang, a small county in Shaanxi province. According to the research, the author finds that the overall situation of middle school students’autonomous learning ability is not positive, and it can be summarized as the following aspects:(1) students have low objective consciousness and motivation;(2) students can not set learning targets, make learning plan, and arrange learning time reasonably and appropriately;(3) students learning methods are not appropriate, learning autonomy is low and they do not know how to learn efficiently;(4) students have bad self-monitoring ability and can not evaluate their learning effectively;(5) the problems of passive learning and dependency are serious. Aiming at the problems, the author puts forward the corresponding metacognitive strategies training methods to improve students’autonomous learning ability, which mainly includes three aspects:(1) paying attention to cultivate and improve students’ metacognitive awareness;(2) cultivating students ability of setting learning objectives, making learning plans, and managing learning time;(3) training students’ ability of self monitoring and evaluating the learning process.Thirdly, the author conducts a teaching experiment aiming at the47junior middle school students of the experimental class in which the proposed metacognitive strategies are applied, and it lasts for a semester. Then the author uses SPSS13.0(Statistic Package for Social Science) to analyze the data of the pre-experiment test and the post-experiment test, and the results show that:(1) students’ sense of embodiment and autonomous learning ability have been improved a lot through metacognitive strategy training;(2) students’ overall English achievement as well as the abilities in basic knowledge of English, reading and writing are improved obviously, especially in improving students’ reading ability.Therefore, metacognitive strategy training for junior middle school students is very efficient in improving their autonomous learning ability, which develops students’ active learning spirit, strengthens students’ confidence, inspires students’ thinking so that they can form good learning habits, and finally reach the goal of improving students’ English achievements, especially for improving their reading ability. There is a broad prospect of application for metacognitive strategy training in foreign language teaching.