An Empirical Study Of Metacognitive Strategies On English Reading In Junior High School

With the development of learning strategy studies,English teaching based on metacognitive strategy training has attracted wide attention from researchers.In the existing researches,foreign and domestic scholars have deeply investigated the positive effects of metacognitive strategy training on English reading,writing,listening,etc.,but their subjects are mainly college students,and relatively little research has been done to junior high school students,especially Chinese junior high school students.Combining the qualitative research and the quantitative research,our study takes the students from two parallel classes of a junior high school in Qingdao as research subjects,the classification of metacognitive strategies by O'Malley and Chamot(2001)as theoretical support,and take into consideration the characteristics of interactive reading model.We design a metacognitive strategy training model for English reading teaching to answer the following three questions:1.What's the relationship between Chinese junior high school students' use of metacognitive strategies and their English reading proficiency?2.How does metacognitive strategy training facilitate the use of metacognitive strategies by junior high school students in their English reading?3.What are the specific effects of metacognitive strategy training on the English reading ability of junior high school students with different reading proficiency?The study lasts three months.The data have been collected through questionnaires,reading tests and interviews with 9 students.Before our experiment begins,we have invited the 100 students of two classes to answer the questionnaire,and divided the students in the experimental class into Group A(high-proficiency),Group B(middle-proficiency),and Group C(low-proficiency)based on their English reading scores in the pre-test.In the experiment,the 50 students in the experimental class have received a metacognitive strategy training of eight weeks for English reading,and the 50 students in the control class have received conventional English reading teaching.When the training ends,the students from both of the classes take the reading post-test and answer the questionnaire again.Finally,the author has interviewed 9 students in Groups A,B,and C of the experimental class to investigate how the students of different English reading proficiency perceive and accept the training.After the experiment,all the data have been analyzed and conclusions drawn.The results show that there is a significant positive correlation between Chinese junior high school students' use of metacognitive strategies and their English reading proficiency.Metacognitive strategy training can effectively facilitate junior high school students' use of metacognitive strategies in their English reading learning.The training has the greatest effect in the students' use of planning strategies,followed by their use of evaluating strategies and monitoring strategies.Moreover,metacognitive strategy training can effectively promote junior high school students' English reading ability.The average reading post-test score of students in the experimental class is significantly higher than that in the pre-test.The training has the most obvious effect on Group C students in promoting reading ability,followed by students of Group B and Group A.According to the interviews,by using metacognitive strategies,the learning interest and confidence of students in Group C have been improved,the reading efficiency of students in Group B have been improved,and students of Group A have made the most progress in post-reading reflection.Therefore,the metacognitive strategy training is applicable to the teaching and learning of Chinese junior high school English reading.Based on these research results,we suggest that junior high school English teachers should attach importance to the guidance of students' English reading metacognitive strategies,so as to improve their reading ability.