A Study On The Application Of Metacognitive Strategy In English Reading Teaching In Senior High School

Reading is an important way to get knowledge and information for learners. HighSchool English Curriculum Standards regards improving the reading ability as theimportant teaching aim all the time. The New High School English Curriculum Standardsproposed cultivating students’ ability of getting knowledge in English. Readingcomprehension occupies a very important position in four language skills (listening,speaking, reading and writing). But in the practical teaching process, it is found thatreading is a problem both in “learning” and “teaching” process. So how to improve thestudents’ reading ability has become a common problem faced by language learners andteachers.Metacognition is a new concept proposed by American psychologist John Flavell inthe1970s. It refers to individual’ s cognition of cognition. Metacognitive strategy includesplanning, selective, monitoring and evaluation strategies, is a higher level of strategy, hasthe management function, and plays an important role in promoting the learners learningprogress. In the process of English learning, learning how to use metacognitive strategiesto design reading program, to monitor the process of reading, to master the reading skill, toadjust the reading strategies and to reflect the effects of reading has a great promotingfunction in English learning.This paper studies the relationship between the metacognitive strategy and Englishreading teaching in senior high school. It aimed at using metacognitive strategies inEnglish reading teaching and through qualitative and quantitative research to explore theactual effect in teaching. In order to test the validity of metacognitive strategies in Englishreading, it used the empirical research methods of pre-test and post-test, questionnaire andinterview in the research. The experiment was carried out in two classes with similarnumbers of students and similar English level. During the experiment, pre-test, post-test,questionnaire and interviews were carried out and data analysis was conducted.The research attempts to find answers to the three questions: Firstly, what kinds ofmetacognitive strategy are usually used in English reading? Why? Secondly, can themetacognitive strategies improve student’ s score of English reading? Thirdly, can themetacognitive strategies change students’ attitude, motivation of English reading andimprove students’ interest of English reading?According to the results of the experiment, students in senior high school are usually used selective strategy and monitoring strategy. The reason why students usually useselective strategy and monitoring strategy in English reading is that students often meetwith new language and culture references, so they pay attention to the visual characters ofthe text consciously. Therefore, in the process of teaching reading, teachers should usemore selective strategy and monitoring strategy to help students to improve their readingability. Then the metacognitive strategy will be more effective in English reading.Students’ score of English reading of EC outperformed students’ score of English readingof CC after the experiment (The mean of EC is4.9811higher than CC after themetacognitive strategies training). Analysis of the results of questionnaire and interviewshows that the metacognitive strategies improve students reading attitude, interest andmotivation. It means that metacognitive strategy can be applied in high school Englishreading teaching.