A Comparative Study On The Use Of Meta-Cognitive Strategies In English Reading Between Arts Students And Science Students In Senior High School

A new curriculum reform has put forward new requirements for both students and teachers.Among them,learning strategy has been strongly advocated in the English curriculum standards.Meta-cognitive strategies as one of learning strategies has attracted more and more teachers’ attention.Flavell(1970)is the first person who focuses his researches on meta-cognitive strategies.It is a typical learning strategy which means learners could efficiently monitor and control the process and result of their cognitive activities.Reading has always taken a significant proportion in English learning and English exam,and its importance is self-evident.Recently,more and more researchers begin to introduce meta-cognitive strategies into English reading teaching.The development of the concept of meta-cognition gives a new angle to investigate reading comprehension.The aim of this paper is to investigate the current situation of senior high school students in the use of meta-cognitive strategies in English reading from the perspective of arts and science students,which focuses on two questions:1.What is the overall situation of senior high school students’ use of meta-cognitive strategies in English reading?2.What are the similarities and the differences on the use of meta-cognitive strategies in English reading between arts students and science students in senior high school?On the basis of some relevant theories about meta-cognitive strategies,this paper adopts questionnaire and interview to survey students and teachers from two aspects of quantitative research and qualitative research.200 Grade Three students of four classes(2 arts classes and 2 science classes)in Mudanjiang No.1 Senior High School are chosen randomly to give out questionnaires and then there is an interview with 16 students(8 arts students and 8 science students)randomly and 8 senior English teachers.Then collect data to carry out a comparative study.Through investigation and research,the following conclusions have been drawn: Firstly,the situation of meta-cognitive strategies used by Senior Three students in Mudanjiang No.1 Senior High School is just at a medium level.In English reading,they tend to use monitoring strategies mostly,but their awareness of using evaluating strategies is the lowest.The frequency of using planning strategies and selective attention strategies is between these two strategies.Secondly,arts students and science students are significantly different in the use of meta-cognitive strategies.Arts students in the use of selective attention strategies are significantly higher than science students.While arts students and science students performed equally on the other sub-strategies of meta-cognitive strategies.At the end of the paper,the author puts forward some teaching inspiration for senior high school’s English reading teaching and learning suggestions for students’ study.