The Correlation Between Reading Strategies And English Reading Achievement Of Government- Sponsored Students Studying Overseas

The focus of this research is to investigate the correlation between English reading strategies and English reading achievement of government-sponsored students who plan to study overseas as visiting scholars,mainly concentrating on the following three aspects: general exploration of current situation of English reading strategies use,correlation between English reading strategies and reading achievement,difference in reading strategies application between high-score and low-score groups.Considering the above aspects,three research questions are posed:(1)What is the current situation of reading strategies use among these trainees?(2)What is the correlation between English reading strategies and English reading achievements? And which is the most influential strategy?(3)What are differences between high-score and low-score trainees in the use of reading strategies?Such a study is important in order to provide more useful suggestions for students in the advanced training classes to improve their reading achievement.Totally 128 trainees in advanced English training class of training department of Xi’an International Studies University(XISU)were chosen as research participants in the study.The research instruments adopted in this thesis includes questionnaire,one-to-one interview and CSC(China Scholarship Council)English reading test.The findings reveal that trainees will adopt strategies in the reading process(i.e.metacognitive,cognitive and social-affective),but the frequency and the degree of correlation are differentiated.According to the study,metacognitive strategies are most frequently used,the next are cognitive strategies,social-affective strategies are barely adopted.Besides,the correlation between metacognitive strategies and English reading achievement is the highest,then the correlation between cognitive strategies and reading achievement,and no correlation has been discovered between social-affective strategies and reading achievement.Additionally,there indeed exist differences in strategies application between high-score and low-score groups.High-score groups adopt more reading strategies than low-score group.The most evident difference is the use of metacognitive strategies,then the cognitive strategies.However,no difference is discovered in social-affective strategies.The main conclusion drawn from this research is that reading strategies play an irreplaceable role in the CSC English reading achievement.The more strategies utilized in the reading process;the higher achievement students will obtain in the CSC English reading test.This thesis recommends that reading strategies,particularly metacognitive and cognitive reading strategies,should be frequently and appropriately applied to both teaching and learning process.