| In the past few decades learning strategy has become one of the hottest topics in the field of language learning and teaching.Metacognitive strategies as one of the branches of learning strategies,has recently drawn the attention of researchers in the fields of education and psychology.As a higher order of executive learning strategies,different researchers have provided varied definitions and classification depending on their research focuses.However,no matter how varied the definition and classifications are,it is evident that metacognitive strategies involve thinking about or knowledge of the learning process, planning for learning,monitoring learning while it is taking place,or self-evaluation of learning after the task has been completed.They contribute to make learning more goal-oriented,task-based,self-regulated and enjoyable.Although studies on metacognitive strategies are a major concern of ESL/EFL,the research about metacognitive strategies in reading comprehension is still limited.It is necessary to further study metacognitive strategies in reading comprehension.Reading has been regarded as an important linguistic skill to be developed when learning a second language.However,there are still inadequate understandings for reading comprehension in which exist among both teachers and students.It caused the results of "high investment, low gain" phenomenon in reading comprehension.Traditional reading instruction has placed too much emphasis on the role of the teacher,which assumes that the teacher's instruction and the frequency of reading are the basic factors affecting the efficiency of comprehension,which has ignored the active contribution of readers to the process of reading comprehension.However,what makes us feel optimistic is that with the development of second language acquisition,reading has aroused many researchers' interest.According to O'Malley and Chamot(1990:137),"metacognitive strategies are learning strategies that involve thinking about or knowledge of the learning process, planning for learning,monitoring learning while it is taking place,or self-evaluation of learning after the task has been completed".So metacognitive strategies is important to foreign language learning and teaching.The major concern of the present study is to investigate current college students' reading ability,to explore whether there is any correlation between metacognitive strategies and L2 reading performance,and most importantly,to train students' metacognitive strategies.Through the training we find the students' reading level can be improved effectively and learners' autonomous ability can develop significantly.In order to make the training more clear-cut,this study adopts O'Malley and Chamot's classification of metacognitive strategies(O'Malley and Chamot,1990).The metacognitive strategies were trained in-class and outside-class.The study method was both quantitative and qualitative,in which data was collected from two tests(pretest and posttest),questionnaires and interviews.The subjects came from two classes of Non-English major in Longyan University of Fujian Province.One class was called experimental class,and the other was called control class.The experimental class received metacognitive strategies-based training for one semester,while the control class followed the scheduled reading syllabus.After the training was finished,data was collected and analyzed.The study was mainly conducted to research:the effects of metacognitive strategies training on reading comprehension;the differences between competent reader and less competent readers in their improvement in reading comprehension after training; the frequency difference between competent readers and less competent reader in applying metacognitive strategies.Positive results were achieved in the study.The findings suggested that reader's reading comprehension could be improved through metacognitive strategies training. Second,all the readers' metacognitive awareness were significantly improved after the training.Third,some differences were found between competent and less competent readers,in which the competent readers outperformed less competent readers based on the frequency that they employed the metacognitive strategies.However,with respect to the degree of improvement,the data suggested that it was the less competent readers that made significant improvement,which proved that metacognitive strategies training has greater potentialities for less competent readers.In addition,the study also provided implications and recommendations for college English reading teaching.
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