A Study On The English Reading Strategies Of Junior High School EFL Students

The importance of English reading comprehension has been widely accepted. How to improve the English reading level of the junior high school students has been the topic concerned by both researchers and English teachers. This is not only because the students get information mainly from reading materials, but also because it can develop the students' linguistic ability by providing the most efficiency and important language input. The aim of the English reading teaching is not only to improve the students' linguistic ability, but also foster the students' reading strategies. The main purpose of the present study is to explore learning strategies for reading comprehension employed by j'unior high school EFL students and to examine the effect of the strategy training on English reading achievement.In order to elaborate the use of the students' reading strategies in junior high schools, the author used a questionnaire based on Oxford's strategy inventory for language learning to assess 80 students' current use of reading strategies, these students come from Grade Two in Suixi Junior High School in Anhui province. The data shows that it is significant for teachers to train the students' reading strategies. In order to contribute for the reading teaching in high schools, this thesis elaborates the relationship between reading strategies and reading comprehensive ability, and the reading strategy used by the students in junior high schools. It is divided into six chapters. The first chapter is the foreword. There is a brief introduction of the significance of the research of reading strategies. The second chapter is the theoretical study about the high school students' reading comprehension. It interprets the essence of reading deeply and the three models of the reading comprehension process. And from the point of the New English Curriculum Criterion, discusses the actuality of the reading teaching in junior high schools. The third chapter is the literature review, exploring the theoretical framework for the study of EFL reading strategies after an overall review of language learning strategies and some empirical studies relevant to the present study. It also introduces some reading strategies which are often used. The fourth chapter is the experiment about the English reading strategy. First it introduces a questionnaire. The second phase is the individual interviews. The last phase is about strategy training. The fifth chapter reports the data analyses and discusses the results of this study. At last, the article briefly summarizes the major finding of the present study. According to the results of this research, some suggestions for teaching and some inherent limitations are proposed.The result suggests that although the strategy training will take up the normal teaching time, and affect the progress of the teaching program. But it contributes to the enhancement of students' reading motivation and helps students to plan, monitor, regulate and evaluate their reading effectively. Most important of all, once the students master reading strategies, they will become the real master of their English learning, which will benefit them all their lives.