A Study On The Correlation Between FI Cognitive Style Of Senior High School Students And The Thinking And Comprehending In English Reading

Cognitive style is a major variability. Field Independence and Field Dependence, one of cognitive styles, play an important role in the foreign language learning. When personal characteristics are valued today, the research on the cognitive style of the SLA (second language acquisition) has aroused the wide attention of scholars home and abroad. As English reading skill serves the basis and precondition of developing other language skills, focus of language teaching and learning is always put on reading. While reading is a complex thinking process. This study employs the theories of FI/FD (filed independence and field dependence), cognitive model, and three reading models (bottom-up, bottom-down and interaction model) to analyze the interactions between two kinds of cognitive style and the students’ English reading performance by quantitative methods. This study is designed to explore whether there is the correlation between FI and the thinking and comprehending in English reading among the senior high school students. The study reveals that firstly, senior high school students’ FI cognitive style has a negative relationship with the performance concerning the question of gist. FD students are better at such questions. Secondly, senior high school students’FI cognitive style has an influence on the performance of factual information questions and reasoning and judgment questions. FI students perform better in these two kinds of questions. Thirdly, senior high school students’ FI cognitive style has no relationship with word guessing questions and questions of purpose and attitude. This study has both the theoretical significance to promote the development of cognitive style theories and the practical value to guide the foreign language teaching and learning.