An investigation of the effects of reading strategy use and metacognitive awareness of eleventh-grade Chinese students' English language development

The general problem of this research explored the effects of flexibility in adapting strategies, reading materials of familiarity, reading materials of levels of readability, and the time devoted to learning English on 11th grade Chinese students' English reading development after interacting with a fable and a story written in English. Specifically, the study sought to answer ten research questions that were germane to the general problem statement.;The 11th grade Chinese students reported using six basic reading strategies: (1) context clues, (2) prior knowledge, (3) picture clues, (4) repeated reading, (5) parts of speech, and (6) intuition. "Context clues" was the most frequently used category.;The factors that caused reading problems were: (1) lack of knowledge of English vocabulary, (2) lack of knowledge of idioms, (3) lack of knowledge of semantic meanings, (4) lack of knowledge of English grammar, (5) lack of knowledge of cultures, (6) difficulty in defining topical concepts, (7) difficulty in keeping motivation, and (8) anxiety. Lack of knowledge of English vocabulary was the most frequently reported cause of reading problems for this group of students.;The students were more flexible in adapting reading strategies to the fable than to the story. A key factor facilitating this enhanced flexibility was prior knowledge of the story structure and content of the fable. Students' reported knowledge of English vocabulary was the critical factor affecting the students' levels of comprehending English reading materials.;Forty-seven (47) 11th grade Chinese students read the fable and the story and responded to a structured questionnaire. The data from the structured questionnaire were categorized and analyzed using basic central tendencies and ANOVA techniques, accompanied by various t-tests, as appropriate. All of the research questions were answered on the basis of these analyses. Supplementary analyses were done on specific aspects of the study that emerged from the primary analysis.;It was concluded that schema theory was a viable, supportable, and demonstrable approach to the development of English as a foreign language, as well as the first or second language. Six (6) recommendations related to practice and further research were proposed.