A Study Of Metacognitive Strategy Training And Its Effect On EFL Reading

Metacognition refers to cognition about cognition. It is proposed by American psychologist John Flavell in 1970s. Since then, it has become a topic of concern in the field of psychology and educational psychology, and it has also been employed in language teaching including teaching English reading. With the development and reform of English teaching in China, more and more researchers begin to concentrate on how to apply metacognition into EFL reading instruction. Extended researches indicate that there is a close relationship between learners'reading ability and metacognitive strategies, and learners'reading ability can be improved by metacognitive strategy training. To deal with the current situation of low-level English proficiency and relatively poor reading ability of the students majoring in Art Design and Physical Education in Shanghai Normal University, the present author conducted a 12-week metacognitive strategy training based on metacognition and learning strategy training models, with a view to improving the learners'metacognitive awareness and reading ability.With English reading comprehension test and questionnaire for metacognitive strategy, this study attempts to examine the effect of metacognitive strategy training of learners'metacognitive awareness and reading ability, as well as the relationship between metacognitive strategy use and reading ability. The data is performed by qualitative and quantitative analysis including paired-samples t-tests, Pearson Correlation, regression analysis through SPSS 17.0 to compare the differences between the two groups before and after the metacognitive strategy training.The statistical analysis shows metacognitive strategy training does enhance students'metacognitive strategy awareness and have positive effect on students'reading ability reflected by the reading comprehension section scores. In addition, the results also show students'metacognitive strategy use is closely related to their reading ability. The students who often use metacognitive strategies while reading get higher scores on the reading comprehension test while those who do not often use metacognitive strategies get lower scores on the reading comprehension test.