An Investigation Of The Effects Of Reading Strategies On Reading Proficiency Among Non-English Major Graduates

It has been widely acknowledged that reading plays an important role in foreign language learning and teaching. For one thing, it has been regarded as the primary source of language input. For another thing, the development of reading is very useful for the development of listening, speaking and writing skills. The importance of reading also has drawn the Chinese English teachers’attention and they have tried every effort to improve the students’English reading ability. Therefore, many researches have been conducted to enclose the factors affecting the foreign language reading comprehension. Among of which, reading strategy is one of the most important factors. This article is intended to investigate and explore the effects of reading strategies on reading proficiency among non-English major graduates. Through the investigation, implications and suggestions will be provided to the non-English major graduates’English teaching and learning. This study employs questionnaires and interviews to study the situation of non-English major postgraduates’usage of reading strategies. This paper focuses on the following three questions:(1)What is the overall situation of non-English major graduates’usage of reading strategies?(2)What are the differences that exist in the use of reading strategies between non-English major graduates of different reading levels?(3)What are the correlations between non-English graduates’use of reading strategies and their English reading proficiency?The subjects of this investigation are selected from a university in Hunan Province, two classes of90graduate students. A questionnaire of these students’ English reading strategies is conducted, and some students are interviewed. Questionnaire data are quantitatively analyzed by SPSS17.0software. The survey results demonstrate that:First, the frequency of graduate students’overall usage of reading strategies is generally not high, which is in a medium level. However, among the four types of reading strategies discussed in this thesis, the cognitive strategies are relatively more frequently used than other three kinds of reading strategies (meta-cognitive strategies, affective strategies, and social strategies). Second, there exist differences between different levels of reading proficiency. HPGS employ reading strategies more frequently than LPGS. Third, there are positive correlations between the graduate students’ use of reading strategies and their reading proficiency. The graduate students’ use of reading strategies is highly influencing their levels of reading proficiency.The results show that in the non-English major graduate English teaching, there is still necessity for training and teaching system knowledge of reading strategies to improve students’ reading level, which is beneficial to further improve their ability to read professional literature, enhance their scientific research level. Apart from the above suggestions, it is also significant to cultivate the non-English major graduates’ discourse reading ability so that they can form discourse reading awareness and improve their reading proficiency.