Study on the Relationship between Metacognitive Strategies and English Majors’ Reading Competence Abstract The American cognitive psychologist John Flavell first put forward the concept of "metacognition" in the early 1970s. Since then, many researches have done related studies about metacognition. And in recent years, there have been many studies of metacognitive strategy in foreign language teaching and learning all over the world. As for students in China, reading plays an important role among four language skills. Reading is the most fundamental and effective way to acquire information in English learning. 47698
This paper tries to explore the general situation of English majors’ metacognitive strategy use and find out the relation between strategy use and their English reading competence. The study has attempted to solve the following questions: What types and frequency of metacognitive strategies do the students use in English reading? What are the significant differences in metacognitive strategy use between students with different levels of reading competence? Are there any relationships between the metacognitive strategy adoption and the students' reading competence?
To answer the questions above, a questionnaire survey is conducted among 65 sophomores of English major in Hangzhou Normal University. Through analyzing statistics, we have the following results: the English major students use the problem solving strategies more frequently while the support reading strategies are least used. There are significant differences in strategy use between students with different reading levels. Students with a higher proficiency level seem to use more metacognitive strategies than those with a relatively low level in general. Metacognitive strategy use plays an important role in learners' reading process though we can't say that there is an absolutely positive impact.
Keywords: Metacognitive strategies; English majors; reading competence
摘要在20世纪70年代初期,美国认知心理学家John Flavell首次提出“元认知”的概念,由此,出现了许多关于元认知的研究。近年來,在世界各地的外语教学领域中,元认知策略的研究也占有重要地位。对于中国学生而言,英语阅读在听说读写四种语言能力中有着很重要的地位。英语阅读一直是获取知识最重要和有效的途径。
本文试图探究英语专业学生在阅读过程中元认知策略使用的总体情况以及阅读过程中元认知策略使用与英语阅读水平之间的关系。本次研究主要围绕以下问题进行探讨:大学英语专业学生元认知阅读策略的具体情况如何?不同阅读水平学生在阅读过程中元认知策略使用的差异是什么? 元认知策略的使用与学生的阅读水平之间有什么关系?
为了冋答上述问题,作者对杭州师范大学65名英语专业大二学生进行了问卷调查。通过对数据的分析统计,结果如下:在阅读过程中,杭师大英语专业学生使用问题解决策略的频率最高,而辅助策略的使用频率最低。不同英语阅读水平的学生在阅读策略使用的也存在显著的差别。相对于阅读水平比较低的学生,阅读水平较高的学生会使用更多的元认知策略。元认知策略的使用对学习者阅读过程具有重要作用,虽然我们不能绝对的说这是一个积极的影响。
毕业论文关键词:元认知策略,阅读能力,英语专业
Contents
1. Introduction 1
1.1 Research background 1
1.2 Significance and aims of the study 1
1.3 Research questions 2
1.4 Structure of the study