A Study On Non-English Majors' Reading Strategies Use

With the development of information society, education is expected to cultivate students'ability of assimilating and processing information as well as spreading information. As a chief means of input in English language learning, English reading occupies an important place in the aspects of skills of listening, speaking, and writing. Therefore, reading is regarded as the most basic way in absorbing information, being engaged in learning and going in for entertainment. But unfortunately, the phenomenon of"high input and low output"is still very common in English reading teaching. How to effectively improve students'reading proficiency remains an unsolved issue.Nuttall (2002) points out that studies on students'reading strategies use can improve their reading proficiency effectively. Reading strategies in English are an organic part of English learning strategies, there have been 30 years in studies on learning strategies. By making a general survey of studies on learning strategies abroad, we have identified the following major problems concerning the following aspects: 1) strategies applied by good language learners; 2) differences between good learners and poor learners; 3) relationship between use of strategies and learning results of L2; 4) language learning strategies training and its effect.Compared with studies on learning strategies abroad, studies in China are more focused on introduction and description of learning strategies theoretically, as for the studies on reading strategies are relative less. For this reason, this thesis investigates the use of reading strategies by non-English majors, and analyzes the correlation between reading strategies and reading proficiency. The aim of this thesis is to look into the current situation of reading strategy use by college non-English majors: what strategies are frequently used , what strategies are more closely related to reading proficiency and what are differences between successful readers and unsuccessful readers in reading strategies use.To secure the reliability of the results in this study, both quantitative and qualitative methods are employed. The quantitative data are collected from a questionnaire answered by 83 non-English majors in Jiangxi Normal University and 110 in Nanchang Institute of Technology (among them 176 answer sheets are available) as well as reading comprehension test paper based on CET-4 in December 2005. In qualitative research, interviews with 16 subjects ( 8 successful readers and 8 unsuccessful readers ), chosen from volunteers out of 176 students, are employed with the intention of further testing and explaining the findings in quantitative research. The conclusions of the survey are described as follows: 1) although non-English majors do use some strategies while reading, they lack a systematic knowledge of reading strategies. In other words, they can't use reading strategies flexibly; 2) as far as non-English majors are concerned, cognitive reading strategies such as skimming, scanning and word-attack skill are frequently used, while structure analysis, metacognitive strategies, affective and social strategies are seldom employed; 3) correlation between reading strategies employed by non-English majors and reading proficiency can be identified. Among them using word-attack skill, inferring, using background knowledge, locating topic sentences, looking for corresponding details and using affective strategies are correlated with reading proficiency; 4) successful readers and unsuccessful readers differ greatly in using reading strategies, successful readers know more strategies than unsuccessful readers do , they are more conscious of using them while reading and they use reading strategies more skillfully and effectively.According to the above findings, this thesis intends to provide valuable and practical advice for college English teachers: before teaching, teachers should find out the real reading proficiency of their students and accordingly design their teaching plans. During the course of teaching, teachers need to acquaint their students with an overall view of reading strategies and emphasize the efficient use of them. After teaching, teachers should cultivate students'reading interests by encouraging them to get access to various reading resources in order to improve their reading proficiency.