Reading Strategy Training For Adult Learners Of English As A Foreign Language

This thesis aims to investigate the impact of strategy training of reading ability of Chinese adult learners of English as a foreign language. The participants are students in a night medical college with different levels of language proficiency. A six-week training program is designed to explore whether reading strategy training can help Chinese adult learners improve reading comprehension. Data collected from questionnaires and results of pre-test and post-test are analyzed for qualitative and quantitative evaluation. Results show that reading strategy training may help the participants of this study improve reading comprehension. The participants demonstrate certain degree of awareness and ability in applying strategies in reading both in classroom discussion and in post-test, in which the experimental group shows a positive difference from the control group.The training program also aims to explore how such training can enhance reading ability. Effective techniques, such as explicit teacher modeling and classroom discussion, originally adopted by reading researchers for L1 and L2 learners, are transferred to this experiment. These techniques prove very effective for the participants, too.Meanwhile, much attention is paid to the characteristics of adult learners so as to exploit their advantages and avoid their disadvantages.The limitations of this study are obvious. The success of six weeks'training is a limited success. Insufficient time and lack of variation in means of evaluation in many ways restrict the experiment. It is hoped that the findings of the study may serve as reference for future studies of similar kind.