A Study On The Effect Of Metadiscourse On Reading Comprehension

This study sets out to investigate the effects of metadiscourse on reading comprehension for Chinese EFL learners. The foci of the study are whether the lack of metadiscourse will affect reading comprehension and how instruction of metadiscourse will influence reading comprehension skills.Based on the literature, we know that metadiscourse is a vague and disputive concept without a unanimous definition and classification. One purpose of this article is to propose a relatively less vague definition and classification. Besides, in spite of the variety of researches on metadiscourse from descriptive and comparative perspective, few of them conducted direct and intensive investigation into the relationship between metadisourse and reading comprehension; therefore, this article also aims to make up the regret and provide the original data and material by examining how the lack of metadiscourse markers will influence reading comprehension and the effect explicit instruction of metadiscourse will take on college students reading comprehension skills.This study addresses three questions:1) How does the removal of metadiscourse markers from a text affect its comprehensibility? This question is approached by addressing two sub-questions. They are:a) Will the removal of macrometadiscourse affect its comprehensibility? b) Will the removal of micrometadiscourse affect its comprehensibility? 2) Does the direct teaching of metadiscourse markers enhance the students'reading comprehension ability? 3) Is PPP model useful and effective if metadiscourse can be taught?There are totally 140 first year students in the experiments. They are science students from Shandong Institute of Light Industry. First, they were divided into three groups and were provided three versions of the same test, original (Group 1), micro-metadiscourse-free (Group 2) and macro-metadiscourse-free (Group 3) texts. Then, one class was treated as Experimental Class (EC), and the other Control Class (CC). A pre-test showed no difference between the two classes. Students from EC received instruction on metadiscourse. Finally, a post-test was administered to compare with pre-test. Students from EC achieved higher score than those from CC.The result showed that metadiscourse markers are responsible for reading comprehension, but students with low English level can not benefit from micrometadiscourse unless being informed of metadiscourse knowledge. The result also proved the positive influence of instruction of metadiscourse based on PPP (presentation, practice, production) model. The results provide useful indications for further research and also highlight the need for targeted instruction on metadiscourse in college reading courses.