A Research On The Effectiveness Of Meta-cognitive Strategies In English Reading In A Senior High School

Reading ability plays an important role in English teaching,and the cultivation of reading ability has become the top priority of English teaching.The main purpose of English reading teaching is to teach students the appropriate reading methods,reading skills,and develop students' reading ability.In order to continue to learn English and use English to lay a solid foundation,the "New English Curriculum Standards"(2017,p4)clearly stipulates that "senior high school English teaching should focus on cultivating students' reading ability." Reading can help us absorb English language materials,increase vocabulary,and broaden our horizons.And the enhancement of reading ability lay a solid foundation for oral English communication skills and English writing.Looking at the types of exams over the years,reading comprehension is the highlight,and it has a large ratio in all types of exams.In the previous reading teaching,teachers over-emphasized the input of grammar knowledge and vocabulary,ignoring the cultivation of students' ability in the process of reading.This kind of teaching method is easy for students to develop a blind obedience and a habit of not thinking,which is difficult to attract students' interest in reading.In view of this,this paper is based on meta-cognitive strategies.Meta-cognitive strategies help students to adjust and monitor their cognitive process.The definition of meta-cognition was originally put up by the American psychologist Flavell in 1976.Meta-cognitive strategies refer to students' adjustments to their cognitive activities,and the sub-categories include planning,monitoring,and evaluation.These are skills that can successfully manage learner cognitive activities.This paper explores the overall level of meta-cognitive strategies awareness in high school English teaching.And exploring whether meta-cognitive strategies enhance students'reading scores and whether meta-cognitive strategies can help learners'reading interest?The subjects of the study are 111 students from a high school in Inner Mongolia and the study lasts 16 weeks.There are 56 students in the experimental class,and 55 students in the control class.The instruments are meta-cognitive strategies'questionnaire,reading material tests and the interview.SPSS 21.0 is used to conduct the data and analyze the result.The results show that first,the meta-cognitive strategies awareness in senior high school students is low.Among the three subcategories in meta-cognitive strategies,students apply meta-monitoring strategies in English reading frequently while students never apply meta-evaluation strategy.Second,the level of the students'English reading scores have improved significantly.Third,students'reading interest has improved.So,it is necessary for the teachers to combine meta-cognitive strategies and English reading.The first step is to set a reading objective,then to monitor the reading process and to evaluate the reading proficiency,all of which make up an effective learning strategy to improve reading scores.This research summarizes the limitations and gives some effective suggestions for high school students' English reading teaching.