| Reading,the main way for second language learners to obtain foreign language input,is also one of the most important factors influencing L2 proficiency.Therefore,how to improve L2 reading ability is one of the key points in the L2 reading field,and directly influences the quality of foreign language input.In the past,most of researches only focus on the single factor causal discussion,but ignores the study of the relationship among different variables.Based on Flavell's meta-cognitive model and reading model theory,this study explores the effects of meta-cognitive knowledge and vocabulary size on English reading comprehension and further explores the moderating role vocabulary size plays in the relationship between meta-cognitive knowledge and reading comprehension.This study specifically addresses the following questions: 1.What is the general situation of meta-cognitive knowledge employed by non-English major postgraduates? 2.How does meta-cognitive knowledge affect students' reading comprehension? 3.What is the relationship among vocabulary size,meta-cognitive knowledge and reading comprehension?The subjects who participated in the study are 179 non-English major postgraduates enrolled in Jiangsu University.Two tests and one questionnaire were employed in this study: Vocabulary level test,English reading comprehension test and Meta-cognitive knowledge questionnaire.It is required that all the tests and questionnaires should be collected immediately after being finished by the subjects and the whole process was completed within one month.Then semi-structured interviews were conducted among five high level readers and five low level readers who were randomly selected as subjects.Finally,all the data were processed by SPSS,and analyzed by descriptive statistics,independent sample T-Test,Pearson correlation and multivariate regression analysis.The following results are obtained through quantitative analysis and qualitative analysis:1.The overall use of meta-cognitive knowledge(MK)by non-English major postgraduates is found to be unsatisfactory,and the level of meta-cognitive knowledge among students varies a lot.Non-English postgraduates just sometimes employ meta-cognitive knowledge in their process of reading comprehension.The most commonly used strategies are mental translation strategies,followed by problem-solving strategies and global reading strategy,the least of which is support reading strategy.2.Differences in the performance of reading comprehension are found to be significant between the high-Level MK group and low-Level MK group.The correlation analysis and regression analysis further confirmed that meta-cognitive knowledge has a significant impact on reading comprehension and can explain about 17.4% of the total variance of L2 reading comprehension.This shows that students with higher meta-cognitive level perform better in reading comprehension than those with lower meta-cognitive level.3.Vocabulary size and English reading comprehension are found to be positively correlated with meta-cognitive knowledge.Path analysis indicates that meta-cognitive knowledge has a direct impact on English reading comprehension,that vocabulary size has a direct impact on English reading comprehension,and that meta-cognition knowledge has an indirect influence on English reading comprehension through vocabulary size.The study reported here provides some implications for non-English major postgraduates' reading instruction from the empirical perspective.In the instruction of second language reading,teachers should not only focus on linguistic knowledge,but should also give priority to meta-cognitive knowledge.To be more specific,in addition to continuing to emphasize the cultivation of the vocabulary size,it is necessary to cultivate students ' meta-cognitive knowledge at the same time,including strategy knowledge and person knowledge.This study further verifies that improving students ' meta-cognitive knowledge can not only improve their vocabulary size but also improve their reading ability,and finally help to achieve the goal of effectively improving L2 language proficiency. |
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