Field Independence And English Reading Ability

Reading, one of the basic skills which second language learners should master, provides important and sufficient linguistic input for them. Therefore, it is very essential to develop their reading abilities. However, reading is a cognitive, construction, interactive, and strategic process in which many factors have effect on the reader's coping with information. Cognitive style is one of the factors which is assumed to play an important role in the reading process. Field independence (FI) is a cognitive style which enables the reader to concentrate on the reading purpose, and use more strategies to monitor reading comprehension. Consequently, FI is supposed to have effect on reading.In order to have a better understanding of the effects of the college English learners' field independence on the reading process, the present study has explored the relationship between field independence and English reading ability. Besides, two characteristics of field independence, analytic characteristic (FI1) and monitoring characteristic (FI2), have also been studied about the relations with the reading ability. In addition, the differences between effective readers and ineffective readers in FI and the reading strategies employed by FI readers have been investigated. One hundred students majoring in Mechanic and Civil Engineering in Hunan University of Science and Technology took part in the experiment. A cognitive questionnaire was designed to assess the student's degree of FI. A reading strategy questionnaire was used to explore the overall use of reading strategies employed by FI readers. And a reading comprehension test was designed to assess the student's reading ability. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected and analyzed. Results reveal that significant relationships exist between FI, FI1, or FI2 and English reading ability, and that there is a significant difference between effective readers and ineffective readers. And differences have been found in strategy use between relatively more field-independent readers and lessfield-independent readers. The former tends to use more strategies and use them more frequently. They are good at metacognitive strategies. However, almost no difference has been found in social/affective strategies between the two groups.The findings of the present study have both theoretical and pedagogical implications. First, they have confirmed the effects of cognitive style on the reading process, which shows that individual difference in cognitive style has certain effects on the language learning process and learning result, so language teaching needs to adopt different methods according to different learners. Second, they are beneficial for the Chinese English teachers to provide reading activities according to the students' different cognitive styles in order to develop strategy autonomy and improve their reading abilities.