| Reading, as one of the important basic foreign language skills, plays a vital role in English learning. Therefore, how to improve students’English reading proficiency has long been a common concern of researchers and English teachers. In 1960s, the focus of research shifted from "how to teach" to "how to learn". It is widely acknowledged that training students how to learn is much more important. Teachers should consider how to foster students’ ability of reading independently. Meanwhile, Chinese Ministry of Education (2007) issued the College English Curriculum Requirements that put forward a new damand on college English teaching:according to the theory of foreign language teaching, it is essential for learnrs to develop comprehensive language knowledge, form the good learning strategies and strength their autonomous learning. More specific demands are asserted in the Curriculum Requirement, which also provides the platform for the researches on English reading teaching.By referring the literatures about meta-cognition and reading from home and abroad, based on the theory of constructivism and self-regulation, taking the training of meta-cognitive strategies and reading as point cut, the author strategies, the author tries to integrate meta-cognitive strategy training into College English reading teaching in order to improve learners’ reading proficiency and autonomous learning ability. The thesis mainly explored the following three questions:1. what is overall state of non-English majors’ application of meta-cognitive strategies to English reading? 2. Can meta-cognitive strategies training enhance the students’ awareness of application of meta-cognitive strategy to EFL reading? 3. Does the meta-cognitive strategy training affect the non-English majors’ reading achievements?The author selected 105 subjects from two parallel classes in Gansu Institute of Political Science and Law, who majored in Administrative law. The experimental class is trained by a meta-cognitive strategies-based approach while the controlled class is still taught in a traditional way. The author conducted the questionnaire survey, pre-reading test and post-reading test and analysis of learners’ self-reports respectively. All data are analyzed by software SPSS 16.0. It employed quantitative study and qualitative study to analyze learners’ reading condition. The questionaire of meta-cognitive includes 24 items, which are divided in four categories:planning, selective attention, monitor and evaluation. Two reading tests were choosen from CET 4 to measure students’ reading comprehension, which has moderate difficulty.According to the analysis of data, the author draws the following conclusion:1. In general, it is at a mediumt level that non-English majors applied meta-cognitive strategies to reading. Selective attention is the most frequently employed one and planning is the least frequently adopted among four major groups of meta-cognitive strategies.2. Meta-cognitive strategies training do strengthen students’ awareness of application meta-cognitive strategies to reading.3. Classroom meta-cognitive strategies do impact positive effects on students’ reading achievements and it is beneficial to students’ reading performance.Finally, the author proposed limitations and pedagogical implications of the study, and then gave some suggestions for further study on meta-cognitive strategies. In the subsequent reading teaching practice, the teacher should pay attention to guiding students to master meta-cognitive strategies. Once the students master these meta-cognitive strategies, they would become the master of English learning and this will benefit them for a whole life. On account of some subjective factors, there are some imperfections. Therefore, the topic on the effects of meta-cognitive strategy training on EFL reading of non-English majors remains to be further research. |
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