An Investigation On Students’ English Reading Difficulties On The Basis Of The Cognitive Theories

In the twenty-first century, the information of social life and the globalization of economy make English more and more important. However, at home, learning English as a foreign language is very difficult in the absence of a native language environment, let alone in the class.Due to cultural differences between China and western counties, students will surely come across a matter of difficulties. Therefore, under such circumstances, students will get language ability through remembering a great many of English words and extensive English reading.The main purport of the thesis is to investigate the difficulties and causes of the first-year English majors’English reading and to suggest corresponding learning and teaching countermeasures, and to provide the reference for increasing the first-year English majors’ English reading ability and improving English reading and teaching’ status quo. The thesis firstly investigates the sixty-nine first-year English majors’ English reading difficulties in the foreign language school of UESTC and investigates the English reading learning’status quo separately by interviewing forty students who have done the questionnaire. Secondly, the thesis uses statistics software of EXCEL to count and analyze the data from the questionnaire and the notes of interview.The main conclusions of this paper:first, non-intelligent factors have impact on the first-year English majors’English. Non-intelligent factors belong to the field of cognitive psychology and include background knowledge, reading sense, reading purpose, reading skills and strategies. Second, this paper analyzes the reasons from two aspects and puts forward effective learning and teaching countermeasures.