A Study On The Effect Of Meta-cognitive Strategy Training On Junior High School Students’ English Reading

English reading,as one of the four fundamental language skills,is an indispensable part of English learning for high school students.However,previous studies showed that junior high school students have great problems in English reading,among which inefficient use of meta-cognitive strategies has a significant impact on the improvement of their reading ability.Based on the situation,this study intended to explore the effects of meta-cognitive strategy training on junior high school students’ meta-cognitive strategy use,English reading achievements,and reading anxiety.A total of 67 junior high school students from Lanzhou,Gansu province took part in the study.During the 14-week teaching experiment,the experimental class(N=33)received Meta-cognitive strategy training,whereas the control class(N=34)followed the traditional English reading instruction.The research adopted the five-stage instructional sequence of CALLA to conduct meta-cognitive strategy training.During the training session,students firstly received training of meta-cognitive strategy knowledge and use.Then,they consolidated and applied these meta-cognitive strategies through reading activities.After the experiment,all data from tests and questionnaires were analyzed by SPSS 26.0.The results of the experiment show that: 1)Students seldom used meta-cognitive strategies before the experiment.After the meta-cognitive strategy training,students can frequently use meta-cognitive strategies.Of the three types of meta-cognitive reading strategies,the monitoring strategies were the most frequently used by the students and the evaluating strategies and planning strategies ranked the second and third most frequently used strategies;2)Students’ overall English reading comprehension scores in the experimental class were significantly improved;3)The overall levels of reading anxiety in the experimental class decreased significantly but were almost at the same level in the control class.Based on research findings,the study proposes the following pedagogical implications.Firstly,teachers should train students to use meta-cognitive strategies in reading.Secondly,teachers should provide students with more opportunities to use meta-cognitive strategies;Finally,teachers should help students to transfer meta-cognitive strategies to the other aspects of English learning.