Abstract

The American cognitive psychologist John Flavell first put forward the concept of "metacognition" in the early 1970s. Since then, many researches have done related studies about metacognition. And in recent years, there have been many studies of metacognitive strategy in foreign language teaching and learning all over the world. As for students in China, reading plays an important role among four language skills. Reading is the most fundamental and effective way to acquire information in English learning. 

This paper tries to explore the general situation of English majors’ metacognitive strategy use and find out the relation between strategy use and their English reading competence. The study has attempted to solve the following questions: What types and frequency of metacognitive strategies do the students use in English reading? What are the significant differences in metacognitive strategy use between students with different levels of reading competence? Are there any relationships between the metacognitive strategy adoption and the students' reading competence? 

To answer the questions above, a questionnaire survey is conducted among 65 sophomores of English major in Hangzhou Normal University. Through analyzing statistics, we have the following results: the English major students use the problem solving strategies more frequently while the support reading strategies are least used. There are significant differences in strategy use between students with different reading levels. Students with a higher proficiency level seem to use more metacognitive strategies than those with a relatively low level in general. Metacognitive strategy use plays an important role in learners' reading process though we can't say that there is an absolutely positive impact. 

Keywords: Metacognitive strategies; English majors; reading competence

Contents

Abstract

摘  要

1. Introduction-1

1.1 Research background-1

1.2 Significance and aims of the study-1

1.3 Research questions-2

1.4 Structure of the study-2

2. Literature review-3

2.1 Research on metacognitive reading strategies-3

2.1.1 Definition of Metacognition-3

2.1.2 Definition of Metacognitive strategy-3

2.1.3 Classification of Metacognitive strategies-4

2.2 Research on reading competence-4

2.3 Previous studies on metacognitive strategy and reading competence both at home and abroad-5

2.3.1 Related researches at home-5

2.3.2 Related researches abroad-5

3. Methodology-7

3.1 Participants-7

3.2 Study methods-7

3.3 Data collection-8

3.4 Data analysis-8

4. Results and discussions-9

4.1 Frequency and types of metacognitive reading strategy use-9

4.2 Differences in students' metacognitive strategy use at different levels of reading abilities-10

4.3 Relations between metacognitive strategy use and students’ English reading competence-11

5. Pedagogical Implications-12

5.1 Raising students' metacognitive awareness in learning-12

5.2 Fostering students’ extensive reading habits-12

5.3 Cultivating students’ ability of choosing proper strategy-12

6. Conclusion-13

6.1 Major findings-13

6.2 Limitations-13

References-14

Appendix-15