Investigation Into The Influence Factors Of Meta-cognitive Strategies On Chinese Reading Of International Students In China

For more than forty years, metacognition has been one of the hot topics in the researches of foreign language teaching. Previous studies showed that metacognitive strategy is the key factor in skilled reading, and meta-cognitive awareness also differs from each individual's characteristics, such as their language skill proficiency and age.Reading is not only a part of foreign language learning, it is also a complicated cognitive psychological process. Teaching Chinese as a second language is a newly developing discipline, and compared with studies of English as a second language, the related researches of Chinese language acquisition are still insufficient.The present study is an empirical research and random sampling is used to select215 international students from several universities in province. These 215 international students were asked to finish the Meta-cognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies Inventory and the Motivation for Reading Questionnaire and their test scores of HSK are collected as well. The situation of meta-cognitive strategy use and its influence on Chinese reading proficiency will be further testified by using SPSS17.0. This study is based on the theory of meta-cognition, adopting the Meta-cognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies Inventory which revised by Kouider Mokhtari & Ravi Sheorey, to measure meta-cognitive strategy usage of Chinese reading among international students in China and then to find the relationship between meta-cognitive strategy and Chinese reading achievement. On the basis of the analysis conducted above, with the help of Motivation for Reading Questionnaire that revised by Baker & Wigfield, the author discusses the mediating effect that meta-cognitive strategy plays between reading motivation and Chinese reading achievement. A path analysis model is built, which contains multiple dimensions of meta-cognitive strategy, reading motivation and Chinese reading achievement with the aid of SPSS 17.0.The results of this study are shown as follows:(1) Metacognitive strategy has a significant positive correlation with Chinese reading achievement, and themetacognitive strategy that foreign students used in Chinese reading is at a medium level. There is a significant gender difference in Support reading strategy among the three dimensions of metacognitive strategies.(2) International students' Chinese reading motivation and Chinese reading achievement have a significant positive correlation. Male international students are more curious about its content than female foreign students when reading Chinese text, and male international students have higher levels of engagement than female students when reading Chinese text.(3)International students who have stronger reading motivation tend to use metacognitive strategies more frequently in Chinese reading.(4) The analysis results indicated that there is no gender difference on international students' Chinese reading achievement.(5) The effect of reading motivation on Chinese reading achievement was totally mediated by metacognitive strategy among international students.