| Reading plays a very important role in leaning, by which not only the new information is obtained but also other skills are acquired. It is stated that reading is cognitive, constructive, interactive, and strategic, so that needless to say, there are many factors which influence and effect the reader's process of comprehending. One of the factors is cognitive style which are assumed to have effects on the reading process. In reading, readers always employed various reading strategies to improve reading efficiency. The thesis tends to explore the influence of college students' field dependence-independence cognitive style upon their use of English reading strategies. Six categories reading strategies—memory, cognitive, metacognitive, compensation, affective and social strategies are involved in the present study. Each category consists of several subcategories. Two research questions are addressed as 1) What are the characteristics of the reading strategies used by English learners? 2) Are there influences of FD/FI styles upon reading strategies? If so, what is it?In the present study, the participants in the study are 75 non-English-major sophomores from Xi'an University of Finance and Economics. The Group Embedded Figures Test and the questionnaire on reading strategies are adopted to conduct the survey. Data are analyzed by using SPSS 13.0. The results and findings of the study are displayed as followings:1) In general, among all the six strategies, compensation strategies(3.42) are moreoften used than any other types of learning strategies, which is followed by cognitive(3.13), metacognitive (2.98 ), memory (2.77), affective (2.74) and social strategies(2.33) . And further study by comparing the 33 often or some time used tactics foundthat the tactics that belong to the cognitive strategies are preferred by Chinese EFLlearners, such as "I say or write new English words several times", "I first skim anEnglish passage (read over the passage quickly) then go back and read carefully", whilethose that belong to the social strategies are less used by them, such as "I try to learnabout the culture of English speakers", "If I do not understand something in English, I ask the other person to help me in understanding", while those that belong to the social strategies are least used by them, such as "I try to learn about the culture of English speakers", "If I do not understand something in English, I ask the other person to help me in understanding".2) There is a slight difference that the field-independent students use memory strategies, metacognitive strategies, affective strategies, social strategies and cognitive strategies more frequently than those field-dependent ones and uses compensation strategies less frequently than those field-dependent ones. FD style students employ such specific reading strategies as "Employing action", "Taking your emotional temperature", and "Empathizing with others" more frequently than FI styles ones.Based on the findings, pedagogical implications are suggested. Firstly, FD/I cognitive style in the use of the reading strategies show that certain effects on reading processes, therefore, different teaching methods need to be adopted in teaching reading according to individual differences. For example, insisting that differences in FD/I styles may mean that some strategies are more useful for one learner than another, so teachers should take this into consideration when designing teaching material and organizing teaching activities. Secondly, teachers adjust their teaching methods in terms of their students' different FD/I style with the purpose of cultivating the students' abilities to employing reading strategies by themselves and improving their reading proficiency. Learners should be treated corresponding to their own FD/I cognitive style enhancing their advantages. What's more, they should be trained to make up for their disadvantages.
|
PDF Full Text Request