| In teaching English as foreign language in China, how to teach reading effectively has been haunting college English teachers because the teacher's well-designed and well-intended instructional efforts can meet with reluctance and disorientation on the part of some students. Some students make greater efforts than those successful learners, but end only less well.The purpose of the present paper is to explore which learning strategies are most directly and immediately relevant to L2 reading; investigate the distribution of reading strategy used by first-year college English majors; assess the differences between strong and weak learners in their strategy employment, and to discuss the practical implications of spreading the effective strategies among all learners.Findings from the tests and survey suggest that strategies seem to play an important role in reading, which would make strong learners more effective readers arid help weak learners catch up. Strong and weak learners differ significantly not only in the frequency of employing certain strategies, but also in the total number of strategies they employ. Different strategies benefit learners differently, and the differences of strategy preference between strong and weak learners partially account for their gaps in reading performance.In light of these findings, seven single strategies are identified as the most positive ones that may have influenced the reading performance in this study.In conclusion, first-year English majors do need to be empowered with a wide range of strategies to achieve competence and effectiveness in reading tasks. It is important for teachers to be aware about the crucial role that strategies play in reading and have a clear knowledge of their students' strategy employment situation. Teachers could expand their own knowledge of reading strategies so as to raise students" consciousness and strategy use and, therefore, improve their reading efficiency. |
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