Training Of Reading Strategies And Development Of Writing Ability

Through an investigation of some English teachers in a Kunming middle school about their teaching and the use of strategies by some students, this paper explores whether reading strategies are properly used in the school. It also aims to see if any positive influences are made by the training of reading strategies on the growth of students’ writing ability and the improvement of their language proficiency to some extent.First a brief review is conducted about the research status on theories of reading and writing at home and abroad. Then with the help of a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods, this paper provides a sketch of how strategies are actually employed by both the teachers and students. The results show that most teachers and students have realized the role of strategies in their reading activities. But the student’s ability of making use of strategies is not as optimistic as expected. Our study indicates that a correlation exists between the students’ writing ability and their awareness of reading strategies, and the same correlation holds between the student’s language achievement and his frequency of strategy use. Students of better achievements are frequent users while those of poorer achievements tend to be infrequent users. Striking differences are also revealed between individuals when it comes to certain strategies.The author suggests that teachers should encourage their students, especially those of infrequent users, to learn more about strategies. They should cultivate their students’ strategy awareness and make training a part of their routine work. Only in this way can we expect for a reasonable growth in the student’s writing ability and their language achievement at large. Meanwhile, this paper presents a true picture of strategy use, draws a workable plan for strategy training, and proves the positivity of strategy training in a middle school. Limitations and suggestions for further research are also made at the end of the paper.