An Action Research On Self-regulated Learning To Improve Senior High School Students' English Reading Ability

The emphasis on discourse in the English Curriculum Standard for Senior High School(2017)highlights the importance of reading teaching.Text based learning provides language and cultural materials for students to develop language skills and form learning strategies.However,the teacher found that some students lack the overall grasp of the article in the reading and they can't find the main idea of the article.There is also a lack of vocabulary that leads to slow reading speed,lack of skills in using reading strategies,and failure to develop good reading habits.The researchers adopted Zimmerman's Self-Regulated Learning to solve the current situation of reading.The content of the four dimensions of self-evaluation?goal setting?strategy execution and monitoring strategy use effect in self-regulated learning meet the requirements of English Curriculum Standard for Senior High School(2017).That is to say,learners can solve reading problems quickly and efficiently.They know what they are reading during the reading process.They can extract effective information from knowledge reserves to finish reading tasks,and they can reflect their reading effects after reading.Under the new concept of education,students as the masters of learning,they have the ability to self-regulate learning is very meaningful to them(Cao Yan,2014).In order to achieve the goal of improving learners'reading ability,the researcher used self-regulated learning to conduct an action research in the first grade of Dong Cheng high school in Xu Chang city.As a research paradigm,action research aims to improve teaching practice.Its particularity is that there is no control class during the experiment,and the study subjects are the teacher's own students.The action research questions are as follows:(1)How about senior high school students'English reading ability?How do they use self-regulated learning in reading?(2)Can self-regulated learning improve senior high school students'English reading ability?If so,what dimensions do they embody?This action research was divided into two stages.The first stage was to train students'self-regulated learning strategies and changed their reading methods.At the end of the first stage,the plan of the second stage was adjusted and revised according to the learners'log.In the second stage of action research,a new plan was put into effect to cultivate the students'self-regulated learning strategies,so as to improve their reading ability.The data collection of this action research adopted a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods.Independent sample t-test,paired sample t-test and Pearson correlation were used to analyze reading test scores,questionnaires,self-evaluation forms.Qualitative data of interviews,logs and self-monitoring forms were analyzed and summarized.The conclusions of this action research were as follows:(1)Students'English reading ability was weak before the action research,and few students used self-regulated learning in reading.After action research,students'ability to adopt self-regulated learning has improved,especially in the two dimensions of goal setting and strategy execution.(2)The self-regulated learning improved the senior high school students'English reading ability,which was mainly reflected in three aspects:English reading habits,English vocabulary and discourse structure.According to the paired sample t-test results of the reading questionnaire,the frequency of students using self-regulated learning strategies was significantly increased(t=-3.103,DF=54,P=0.003<0.05).In terms of English reading performance,there was a significant difference according to the paired sample t-test results of reading tests(t=-4.322,DF=54,P<0.05).The results of pre reading test was lower than those of post reading test(MD=-6.982).After Pearson correlation analysis,English reading ability and self-regulated learning ability showed a significant positive correlation(p<0.01)and the correlation coefficient r=0.784.In the correlation model summary table,R~2 is 0.614,indicated that all independent variables can explain the 61.4%change in reading performance of the dependent variable.That is to say,the61.4%improvement in English reading performance was caused by self-regulated learning factors.In the ANOVA table,the P value is 0.000,indicated that at least one of the independent variables affect the dependent variable.The regression coefficient P value in the independent variables is 0.000<0.01,indicated that self-regulated learning show a significance level of 0.01.The non-standardized regression coefficient of self-regulated learning is 0.384,which indicated that self-regulated learning has a significant positive impact on reading performance of the dependent variable.This action research is helpful to improve the students'English reading ability,it also has enlightenment on high school English reading teaching.But there are also some shortcomings in this action research,such as limited research samples,shorter research cycle.In the future teaching,researcher will continue to explore the influence of self-regulated learning on senior high school students'English reading ability.