Studies On Newspaper Reading Strategies Of Junior English Majors By The Method Of Think-Aloud

Since the1970s, under the influence of the information processing theory, reading strategies are defined as active cognitive methods in meaning construction which would improve reading effectively. Therefore, studies on reading strategies have great importance. In addition, since the application of strategies differs greatly in specific situation in the process of reading, and also on account of the predominant merits of informative and time-efficient of English newspaper reading, which is more commonly presented in domestic study but difficult to understand, this paper is a descriptive analysis about strategies in English newspaper reading.Based on the classification of learning strategies of O’Malley&Chamot (1990), this paper examines the reading strategies of four English majors by think-aloud method. It hopes to investigate the characteristics of English newspaper reading strategies. Moreover, besides this surface structure meaning identification, it also hopes to discuss the inference and understanding of deep-structure meaning, which is to make summarization from cognitive scope. For think-aloud protocol, it is expected to apply extensively in the study of reading, which is such a silent mental activity. The findings of this study are listed as follows:1. In the process of newspaper reading, English majors are able to use a certain amount of strategies, but primarily concentrate on translation, delayed production, segmentation and repetition. This suggests that in this kind of reading, strategies are limited to a small scope in usage, and people mostly depend on their mother tongue. The reading patterns of the students are not well or fully activated. What’s more, people tend to employ different reading strategies and approaches to different texts.2. The frequency of strategies used in newspaper reading from the highest to the lowest ranks as follows:cognitive strategies, meta-cognitive strategies and social-affective strategies. Mostly, cognitive strategies are passively subject to the reading text; meta-cognitive strategies serve an active function in monitoring and managing; the more the social-affective strategies are emphasized, the more anxiety it will be aroused. The three of them are inseparably interconnected with each other.