Research On Effect Of Cognitive And Metacognitive Reading Strategy Training For Non-English Majors

This article reports an effect study of cognitive and metacognitive strategy training for reading in an ongoing university foreign language reading classroom. The basic theoretical rationales come from cognitive linguistics, psycholinguistics and foreign language learning strategy instruction.Reading is one of the key proficiency in language pedagogy and learning. The traditional grammar-translation oriented teaching reading method overemphasizes language form and overlooks students' ability in language use. From the perspective of Information Processing Theory and Cognition Theory, the nature of reading embraces both cognitive information processing in the lower level and metacognitive integrated activities in the higher level. Therefore, the cognitive and metacognitive strategy training, which serves as the bridge between explicit instruction and learner's individualized learning, aims to cultivate self-autonomous learner.At present, in the field of Chinese language strategy research, more focus is paid on learner's metacognitive descriptive investigations. The combination of cognitive and metacognitive strategy training is less covered in Chinese context.In the current research, the effect of the cognitive and metacognitive strategy training in reading is explored. The subjects in the present study come from three intact non-English major classes in Northwest Normal University with total numbers of 161, in which one class is randomly chosen as the experimental class, the other two classes as the controlled classes. There are three reading tests, two 5 Likert-Scale questionnaires and one retrospective interview embraced in the experiment instrument. Data collection and analysis are implemented by SPSS (Version 10.0). Several main outcomes are obtained as follows. First, the reading performance of the experimental class, compared with those of the controlled classes, is significantly improved. Second, the experimental class exploits more global and local cognitive and metacognitive strategies than the controlled classes. Third, the intermediate and lower level readers' reading performance are also greatly enhanced with the more frequent use of global and local strategies. Last, the reading improvement is contributed by both cognitive and metacognitive strategy training and there is highly correlated relationship between cognitive and metacognitive strategy.The current research implies that cognitive and metacognitive strategy training not onlypromotes students' reading performance, but it is crucial to develop students' self-regulated learning proficiency. The fact that the intermediate and lower level readers benefit more than the higher level reader from the training indicates the training is of great importance for the majority of medium and lower reading level students in the ongoing reading class.There isn't without restrictions in this research and undoubtedly more improvement should be taken into consideration in it.