Reading Strategies Used By Non-English Majors And Reading Strategy Training

Modern language teaching over the past few decades has moved from more emphasis on teachers and teaching to greater stress on learners and learning. One consequence of this shift is the focus on the use of language learning strategies (LLS) in second and foreign language (L2/FL) learning and teaching and research on second language learning strategies gradually became the general interest of applied linguistics.As for reading, many researchers begin to study the process of reading, reading models, reading strategies used by successful and unsuccessful readers and the effect of strategy training in reading.In our country, though special attention is paid to reading in ESL teaching, reading is regarded as a mere way of enriching vocabulary and grammatical knowledge by many students and even some English teachers. So, a clear understanding of reading and reading strategies is crucial.The purpose of this study is to investigate the use of reading strategy by non-English majors in Shandong Agriculture University through two performance assessments accompanied by a questionnaire analysis and discuss the effect of reading strategy instruction. The objectives of the study are to (1) identify the variety and the range of reading strategy use of college students in their reading, (2) describe the differences in students' use of strategy and reading model at different levels of English proficiency, (3) detect the gender differences in the employment of reading strategy and reading models, and (4) find out whether the instruction of reading strategy is effective to students of higher L2 proficiency level.290 non-English majors from Shandong Agriculture University responded to the reading strategy questionnaire, 237 of them answered all the questions, so the other 53 subjects were excluded from the study since they gave invalid responses to the questionnaire. The data were edited, sorted and analyzed to describe students' use of reading strategy in their reading.To test the effectiveness of reading 'strategy instruction, 59 of the 237 subjects were involved in the experiment with 30 subjects in the experimental group and 29 of them in the control group. A three- month strategy-based instruction was carried out.The study shows that college students in SDAU use reading strategies in their study of English, and in general they use traditional strategies more frequently than nontraditional strategies. They don't use management strategies often in their reading. In terms of bottom-up strategies, top-down strategies and meta-cognitive strategies, they use bottom-up strategies more frequently than top-down strategies. Also, they seldom use meta-cognitive strategies in their reading. What's more, students of lower L2 proficiency use traditional strategies more frequently and students of higher L2 proficiency use nontraditional strategies more frequently. It also shows that female subjects are a little more inclined to use strategies in their reading than their male counterparts and the three-month strategy-based instruction is very effective to the subjects of higher L2 proficiency in terms of reading.This thesis is only a tentative study and there still remain some unsolved problems for me to exert more efforts in the future. I hope this thesis will be of help to L2 learners and teachers.