Effect Of Metacognitive Strategy Training On College Students' English Reading Comprehension

For EFL learners, reading is one of the most important ways of language input. How to improve learners'reading competence has always been the concern of language teachers and researchers. The concept of metacognition is known as cognition about cognition. It is described as the knowledge and control of individual's thinking process and learning activities. The purpose of applying metacognitive strategies to English reading lies in improving learners'reading efficiency.This paper reports a study on the application of metacognitive strategies of 216 non-English majors. Questionnaires and reading tests are used to collect data. SPSS17.0 is adopted to analyze the data. The design of the questionnaire is based on the related researches in recent years. Reading test papers are selected from National College English Test Band Four. Both the questionnaires and tests are carried out before and after the training.To ensure the validity and reliability, two classes are selected randomly. For the experimental class, metacognitive strategy training is integrated into the normal teaching in class, while the control group only receives the normal teaching without metacognitive strategy training.The following findings result from this research:(1) After the training, the selective attention strategy category is most favored by the students, and the monitoring strategy category is least used by them.(2) This empirical study verifies the positive impact of metacognitive strategies in improving students'reading achievement which also carries statistical significance.(3) The training model used in this experiment proves to be an effective and feasible one.This study further confirms the positive effect of metacognitive strategies on reading. It provides a practical teaching model for English language teachers to conduct strategy training.The thesis is composed of six parts. Part one is an introduction which gives a general review of the whole thesis. It points out the significance and the purpose of the present study. Part two is the theoretical background which covers the relevant literature of metacognition and metacognitive strategies. Part Three concerns issues on the training of metacognitive strategies. Part Four deals with the experiment itself in great detail. It consists of research questions, hypothesis, subjects, instruments and data collection.Part Five is data analysis and discussion.It also presents the limitations of the present study. Part Six is the conclusion.