An Application Of Meta-cognitive Strategies In The Teaching Of English Reading For Enlish Majors

With the development of learning strategies in the second language, it is surethat metacognition is playing an important role in language learning. As psychologistsget deeper understanding on metacognition, foreign language teaching researchers aregradually aware that metacognition plays an important and valuable part in foreignlanguage learning. American psychologist named Edward Lee Thorndike arguedearlier that reading is a reasoning process, is a large amount of activities now calledmetacognition, and during effective reading, readers must have a certain control forhis cognitive activity. Reading comprehension includes numerous skills and activitiesinvolving metacognition. Metacognition can help learners to make effectiveself-regulation and self-adjustment during foreign language reading, which may havea potential impetus to improve the ability of reading and understanding.This thesis discussed the influence of metacognitive strategy training to thereading ability of English major students in vocational colleges by the research ofmetacognitive strategy training on first-year students of English major during a periodof one semester. The experiment shows that metacognitive strategy is helpful forstudents to improve their English reading ability; after training, the level of usingmetacognitive strategy by students has increased. Only when students accumulateenough level in metacognitive strategy, can it produce fundamental influence onreading ability.