An Investigation Of Reading Strategies Employed By English Majors In The Normal College

As one of the hot topics within the field of foreign language learning and teaching, the study of Learning Strategies (LSs) {which includes Reading Strategies (RSs)} has attracted researchers' attention. The recent English teaching reform also stresses the implementation of strategy training in daily teaching routine. Thus English teachers are facing new challenges in how to be qualified teachers in the new era. English majors in the normal colleges, as teachers-to-be, are also taking on the responsibility of meeting the new curriculum requirements. Their overall current learning strategy use and the possible problems are to be considered. English reading is the main tool of language input and one of the important learning skills. This study on reading strategies has practical importance. The paper aims at elaborating on the present tendencies of reading strategies used by English majors in the normal college;with the sincere hope of shedding some light on second language teaching both theoretically and practically.Researches on RSs can be done in the light of LSs. With the review of literature on LSs and RSs in second language acquisition, O'Malley and Chamot's (2001) system of learning strategy classifications is used as conceptual model for the questionnaire. My teaching experience as a reading teacher, other related research, and consideration of the reading practice of English majors in the normal college will be used to amend O'Malley and Chamot's classification for my reading research. The thesis mentions six metacognitive strategies: advance organization, directed attention, selective attention, self-management, self-monitoring and self-evaluation;ten cognitive strategies: elaboration, inferencing, imaginary, grouping, note-taking, translation, resourcing, deduction, summarizing and transfer;three social/affective strategies: self-talk, question for clarification, and cooperation. Metacognitive strategies are higher order executive skills that may entail planning for, monitoring, or evaluating the success of a learning activity (Brown et al 1983);cognitive strategies operate directly on incoming information, manipulating it in ways that enhance learning;social/affective strategies represent a broad grouping that involves either interaction with another person or ideational control over affect (O'Malley and Chamot, 1990).A questionnaire and a case study were used to explore students' strategy use in the present study. It aims to[1] identify the present reading strategies used by normal college English majors in their English reading;[2] describe similarities and differences in strategies used by students at different levels of English achievement.Fifty-four Junior English Majors in a normal college were involved in this study. The results of the quantitative study reveal:[1] Students overall strategy use is only moderate. In addition, social/affective strategies are least used;[2] To all the students, strategies of "directed attention", "selective attention", "elaboration", "inferencing", "grouping", "note-taking", "translation" and "deduction" are almost always used while the strategy of "cooperation" is generally not used;[3] High-proficiency learners use three types of strategies more frequently than low-proficiency learners;the former ones especially use "inferencing", "grouping", "directed attention" and "advance organization" significantly more than the latter ones;[4] Both groups employ strategies: "directed attention", "inferencing" and "translation" very frequently while almost never employ strategies "cooperation" and "summarizing".Meanwhile, the qualitative analyses explore the underlying reasons of previous findings, e.g. insufficient English reading by the learners, inadequate communication with others when reading, and their lack of autonomous learning outside class among many others.Finally, some pedagogical implications are given at the end of the thesis. It is suggested that strategy instruction should be integrated into teaching activities and students should take charge of their own study, do more reading and consciously transfer strategies to similar reading tasks. Furthermore, students should be motivated to enhance their effort to learn about and practice using these strategies in extensive reading activities.