Role of Metacognitive Strategies in Reading and their Application in Foreign Language Teaching
...of reading tells us that readers do have hypotheses and predictions in mind during the reading process. However, the top-down model of reading has some limitations. Unlike Gough’s bottom-up model based on the studies of fluent adult readers, Goodman’s theory was based on L1 beginners. But this theory has been widely influential in L2 reading and teaching, particularly in promoting the importance of predicting, guessing and “going for gist” the at the expense of attention to letters and words. The application of top-down model to L2 reading “has resulted in many useful insights, but lack of attention to decoding problems has produced a somewhat distorted picture of the true range of problems L2 readers face”(Eskey, 1988). L2 readers are lack of background knowledge and they are syntax-bounded readers. It is impossible for L2 learners to do reading comprehension without paying enough attention to the words and sentences. On the other hands, with less attention to letters and words in the text, the hypotheses and predictions have not enough constraints. Comprehension becomes a guessing game. Furthermore, this theory is almost impossible to put into teaching practice. The teachers are puzzled at teaching method, as there is nothing tangible to be based on. 2.3.3 Interactive models Both bottom-up and top-down models have contributed much to our understanding of reading comprehension, but their descriptive flexibility is greatly weakened by their directionality in explanation, operating exclusively either from the bottom-up or from the top-down. Therefore, the interactive model is proposed to reconcile the difference. This model believes that reading is not just an active process, but an interactive process. The most influential model of interactive perspectives is the one given by Rumelhart, one of the first to argue against the linear processing presumed by bottom-up models. He (1977a) suggests that “reading is at once a ‘perceptual’ and a ‘cognitive’ process”(p.573). According to Rumelhart, the reader looks at words and spelling that are registered in a visual information store (VIS). The feature extraction device pulls out the critical features of these words (with the successful reader sampling only enough of the text to continue) and moves them into the pattern synthesizer. The pattern synthesizer is where all the reader’s previous knowledge about the language spelling patterns, syntax, vocabulary, semantics, and context come together to interpret what has been read. “Thus, all of the various sources of knowledge, both sensory and nonsensory, come together at one place and the reading process is the product of simultaneous joint application of all the knowledge sources” (Rumelhart, 1977a, p.588). Stanovich (1980) adds a new feature to the interactive Rumelhart model by suggesting that strength in one processing stage can compensate for weakness in another. He declares, “Interactive models assume that a pattern is synthesized based on information provided simultaneously from several different sources. The compensatory assumption states that a deficit in any knowledge sources results in a heavier reliance on other knowledge sources, regardless of their level in the processing hierarchy”(1980, p.63). Stranovich’s interactive-compensatory model deals with the shortcomings of both bottom-up and top-down models. The bottom-up model assumes that background knowledge cannot be activated before lower-level decoding while the top-down model does not allow lower-level level processes to influence or direct higher level ones. Therefore, poor readers may be thus using strong syntactic and/or semantic knowledge to compensate for less knowledge of orthography or of the lexicon. Evidently, efficient second language readers might use first language skills and strategies to compensate for linguistic weaknesses. The interactive model stresses an interaction between readers and the author, and interaction between the knowledge stored in the reader’s mind (scheme) and the written language information. The interactive models are not just a compromising between the bottom-up and top-down models. Generally speaking, interactive models provide a more accurate conceptualization of reading performance than do strictly top-down or bottom-up models. The merits of interactive models are quickly recognized and put into practice in the field of English language teaching, where second language and foreign language readers, due to their inadequate language competence and/or inadequate background knowledge, have much to compensate for in the reading process. In light of the broad sense of the theory, readers are encouraged not only to resort to various sources of knowledge---lexical, syntactic, semantic and general world knowledge, but also to use both careful reading skills and expedition reading strategies to cater to different tasks which embody various reading materials and reading purposes. The reader is seen as an active participant, and all of the reader’s knowledge and previous experience play a major role in reader comprehension. The fact that the text cannot be ignored makes the interactive view appealing, as does Rumelhart’s view that the impact of each processing stage can vary. The reader seen as an active participant in written communication who seeks meaning purposefully and reconstructs text for an internal reader has also become a part of second language reading theory. An emphasis on using strategies to glean meaning from text has become central to second language reading theory and foreign/second language pedagogy. 2.3.4 A Constructivist model There is another reading model—Bernhardt’s Constructivist model to be mentioned. The impact of reader schemata on reading is essential to Bernhardt’s constructivist model of second language reading (see Figure 2.2). Based on recall data generated by intermediate, university- level American readers of German, French, and Spanish, this model defines an interaction of text-based and extratext-based components but emphasizes the latter. The reader recognizes words and syntactic features, brings prior knowledge to the text, links the text elements together, and thinks about how the reading process is working (metacognition). She notes that text-based components include word recognition, phonemic decoding (recognition of words based on sound or visual mismatch), and syntactic feature recognition (interpretation of the relationships between words). Extratext-based components are intratextual perceptions (the recognition of each part of the text to preceding and succeeding elements), prior knowledge (whether the text makes sense with respect to the reader’s schemata), and metacognition (the extent to which the reader is thinking about the reading process). (See Figure 2.2) Figure 2.2 The Constructivist Model 2.4 Factors involved in reading comprehension According to reading theories in first language learning, the factors involving in the reading process can be divided into two general categories: text factors and reader factors, the former refers to text-based variables (e.g., vocabulary, syntax, rhetorical structure, cultural content) and the latter reader-based variables (e.g., background knowledge of the world and texts, cognitive development, interest and purpose in reading, strategy use)(Liu Tianlun, 1998, Barnett, M. A. 1989). 2.4.1 Text-based factors Many of the major issues in reading addresses by first language reading models are equally central to the second language reading process. For ease of discussion, these may be divided into questions of text characteristics and reader traits. In the normal reading process, text factors can be classified into four categories: 1) the perceptibility of the coded message; 2) the adequacy and completeness of the coding system; 3) readability; 4) the writer’s meaning. The perceptibility of the coded message refers to the physical characteristic of the text. A text comprehended by the reader should have recognizable codes. According to Spencer (1969) and Watts Nisbet (1974), some printed codes are easy to legible than others. For example, people are more likely to recognize black printed codes in white papers than the codes in the other colors papers. And the criterion of the letters, the sequences of words (from up to bottom, from the left to the right or from the right to the left); the types of letters; row spacing; the width of margins are also influencing reading comprehension. The adequacy and completeness of the coding system refers to whether the language used in the text is completed or not, and whether the language can be a bridge between the text and readers. From the linguistics point of view, important elements in a text include the following: letters or characters, also referred to as graphics or features; the phonological component, that is, letter and sound correspondences; words perceived as embodying meaning; semantics, the meaning of groups of words together; syntax or grammar, how words function in relation to each other; and sentence, paragraph, and text structure. According to Halliday and Hasan (1977), the basic element of a structure is the relationship between all internal meanings in the text, that is, cohesion, such as reference; repetition; substitution; ellipsis and conjunction. Halliday (1978) also reduces the substantial functions of a language as ideational function, interpersonal function and textual function. It is unimaginable that we use the uncompleted ancient language to explain abstract and complicated phenomenon. Readability is taken here to refer to the linguistic and conceptual difficulty of texts, as opposed to their legibility. The studies of readability include 1) the average sentence length; 2) new words in a text; and complexity of linguistic grammar. In considering what makes for ease or difficulty, there are clearly a very large number of factors which could be taken into account. These include such matters as whether the reader is already interested in what a book is about, whether the book is written in such a way that it is likely to create interest, whether there are conceptual problems and/or problems in expression, and so on. Most formulae for predicting reading ease or difficulty have taken account of only a small number of these factors. In the main they have considered the frequency with a word occurs in the language and the complexity of the sentence. A further step is to use letter or syllable counts instead of word counts, on the ground that more common words tend to be the shorter words. Similarly, sentence length rather than structure is normally what is assessed, on the grounds that shorter sentences tend to be less complex than longer ones. Klare (1968) finds that the relationship between sentence length and complexity of sentence structure appears to be less well established, perhaps because it has seemed too obvious to be worth establishing or possibly because of the difficulty of agreeing means of analyzing sentences. The writer’s meaning can be divided into two categories: the internal meaning of the text and the comparative value of the text. The former refers to the meaning directly or indirectly implied in the text and the writer’s intended meaning, such as goals, attitudes, tones, writing styles and so on. The comparative value of the text refers to the existing meaning of the text, for instances, the quality of the text; its historical value and its influences etc. Let us make an example. If we have a dinner in the public place, some one will ask:“ Will you help yourself to the salt?” From this sentence we know that the speaker’s direct meaning is to ask the person he speaks to to have the salt, but the indirect meaning is to ask the person to give the salt to the speaker if he does not need it. Any serious works has its own intentional and comparative value. 2.4.2 Reader-based factors Although the text has its existing values, the reader is the more important factor in the reading process. Reader factors can be explained as the followings: 1) readers’ perceptive and cognitive skills; 2) readers’ linguistic knowledge; 3) readers’ nonlinguistic knowledge; and 4) readers’ motivation, purpose and interest. Readers’ perceptive skills usually refer to our two abilities: visual perception and auditory perception. Even blinded people can read, because they use tactual perception to replace visual perception. Besides these, cognitive skills play more important role in reading process. And cognitive skills usually include intelligence, memory, predicting, inferring, analyzing, synthesizing and evaluating. Most reading models describe cognitive process in great details. And all the accepted reading models emphasize the importance of inferring. This is not only because readers need to infer new words meanings from the context, but also readers have to comprehend the text through inferring meanings from topics and structures of the text. Inferring is more important for the foreign language readers to comprehend the text, because they have to employ inferring to compensate for the poor target language competence. In the advanced reading readers should have metacognition. Metacognition will be discussed in details later. In a word, the role of readers’ perceptive skills is to receive the information from the coded message, and the role of cognitive skills is to store, manage and decode the information through the prior knowledge (both linguistic and nonlinguistic knowledge). Linguistic knowledge is a relative concept. It includes all the linguistic elements, such as graphics of feature, phonological component, words as individual entities, words perceived as embodying meanings, semantics, syntax or grammar, sentence, paragraph and text structure. In additional, it should include types of writing, styles and rhetoric knowledge. Myth stories go by model of timing sequence; news reports answer who, what, when, where, why and how questions; and experimental reports usually go by problems, the approaches to solve these problems, procedure, results and applications or values. Of course, not under all reading occasions should readers have linguistic knowledge. For example, adult readers (esp. foreign language readers) use the prior nonlinguistic knowledge to compensate for lack of linguistic knowledge. But if readers want to comprehend accurately and sufficiently, they must depend on linguistic knowledge. Nonlinguistic knowledge is also called scheme (pl. schemata). Some researchers emphasize the role of reader schema and background knowledge, whereas others refer to reading as a psycholinguistic process and explore how readers interpret the syntax and semantics of a text. Still others determine text readability by analyzing text structures and they consider reader characteristics to be secondary. Currently, one of the prevailing approaches to the analysis of reading process is the schema theory. Bartlett (1932, 1958) first proposed the concept of schema or schemata (plural). He suggested that memory takes the form of schema, which provide a mental representation or framework for understanding, remembering and applying information. Rumelhart (1980) further developed the schema concept and described schema theory as basically a theory of how knowledge is mentally represented in the mind and used. Schemata (also called scripts) are a reader’s existing concepts about the world, “knowledge already stored in memory” (Anderson & Pearson, 1984, p.255). Readers' schemata are divided (following Carrell 1983a) into two main types: 'content schemata' (background knowledge of the world) and 'formal schemata' (background knowledge of rhetorical structure). Involving a complex interplay of reader and text variables, the foreign/second language reading process is most generally considered analogous to first language models of interactive processing; the reader interacts with the text to create meaning as the reader’s mental processes interact with each other at different levels (e.g., letter, lexical, syntactic, or semantic) to make text meaningful (Carrell, 1987c; Rumelhart, 1977a). But in second /foreign language reading process, another schema was added because of different cultures, that is, cultural schemata. The reader’s motivation, purpose and interest are also readers’ factors. The reader’s motivation or purpose to read a text will influence reading comprehension. For example, some children read a text instead of playing only to avoid being scolded by their parents or teachers. Some students have no interests in a text, but they comprehend the text only to memorize some content to pass the exam. Otherwise, if readers have no purposes or motivations and interests, they will not comprehend the text or memorize the text even they have the language competence. Generally speaking, there are some purposes or motivations in reading comprehension, while the interest is selective in the reading process. But these three factors definitely affect the effectiveness of reading. Therefore, motivation, purpose and interest are the reader variables influencing the reading comprehension. 2.5 Summary of the chapter This chapter first reviewed the nature of reading and reading comprehension and then reviewed first language reading models and implications for FL/SL reading process. Then it gave a detailed description of first language reading models: bottom-up, top-down, and interactive models including Bernhardt’s constructivist model. Next it reviewed the factors involved in reading process including text-based factors and reader-based factors. Reader-based factors now are regarded as the most important factors influencing reading comprehension, especially reader’s perceptive skills. And the cognitive skills are critical in perceptive skills. Metacognition is cognition of cognition and plays an important role in cognition. Therefore, metacognition should be paid much more intention during reading process. Chapter 3 Metacognition Theory In this part, I will give a detailed account of metacognition and its origin, definition, classification, distinction between cognition and metacognition, and metacognitive strategies in reading comprehension. 3.1 Explanation of Metacognition 3.1.1 Definition of metacognition In general, metacognition has been defined simply as thinking about thinking, cognition of cognition. The notion was originated from Flavell’s research on metamemory with a group of pupils and preschool children. He found that if pupils and preschool children were asked to study a set of materials until they were sure that they could recall them, the pupils were usually able to recall every single correctly if they judged they were ready, whereas the preschool children usually failed to recall some of the items even they judged they were ready. Flavell pointed out that it was because preschoolers could not monitor and evaluate their current memory capabilities as effectively as pupils, and this is metacognition. What is metacognition? What is basic to the concept of metacognition is the notion of thinking about one’s own thoughts. Thinking can be of what one knows (i.e., metacognitive knowledge), what one is currently doing (i.e., metacognitive skill), or what one’s current cognitive or affective state is (i.e., metacognitive experience). As early as 1978, Flavell defined metacognition as “knowledge that takes as its object or regulates any aspect of any cognitive behavior”(p.8). Two dimensions of metacognition ability have been recognized: a) knowledge of cognition, and b) regulation of cognition (Flavell, 1978). The first, knowledge of cognition, includes the reader’s knowledge about his or her own cognitive resources and the compatibility between the reader and the reading situation. If a reader is aware of what is needed to perform efficiently, then it is possible to take steps to meet the demands of a reading situation more effectively. If, however, the reader is not aware of his or her own limitations as a reader or of the complexity of the task at hand, then the reader can hardly be expected to take preventative or corrective actions to anticipate or recover from problems. Building on Flavell’s contributions to metacognition, Kluwe (1982) brought further definition to the concept by identifying two general attributes common to “activities referred to as ‘metacognitive’: a) the thinking subject has some knowledge about his own thinking and that of other persons; b) the thinking subject may monitor and regulate the course of his own thinking, i.e., may act as the casual agent of his own thinking”(p.202). Furthermore, using a distinction made earlier by Ryle (1949), Kluwe linked the first attribute to declarative knowledge, “stored data in long-term memory,” and the second attribute to procedural knowledge, “stored processes of a system” (p.203). According to Tei and Stewart, metacognition has been defined as ‘having knowledge (cognition) and having understanding, control over, and appropriate use of that knowledge. Metacognition refers to understanding of knowledge, an understanding that can be reflected in either effective use or overt description of the knowledge in question (Brown, 2001). According to Flavell (1982) and other researchers (Brown, Bransford, Ferrera & Campione, 1983), metacogntion has mainly three basic elements: metacognitive knowledge, metacognitive experience and metacognitive strategies; it also consists of three categories/variables---person, task and strategy. 3.1.2 Distinction between cognition and metacognition It is difficult to make a precise distinction between cognition and metacognition. Cognition is the various mental processes used in thinking, remembering, perceiving, recognizing, classifying, etc. In cognitive psychology, cognition deals with the study of the nature and learning of systems of knowledge, particularly those processes involved in thought, perception, comprehension, memory, and learning. Metacognition is referred to as “thinking about thinking” or “cognition of cognition”. Meacognition is now seen as a central contributor to many aspects of cognition, including memory, attention, communication, problem solving, and intelligence. It has been suggested (Flavell, 1981) that one can distinguish cognitive strategies from metacognitive strategies. A cognitive strategy is one designed simply to get the individual to some cognitive goal or subgoal, while a metacognitive strategy might be to no longer to reach the goal (cognitive strategy), but rather to feel absolutely confident that it has been reached (metacognitive strategy). Just as Jacobson puts it: “Metacognition is not an automatic process but is a result of long term development of cognitive system”. Metacognitive strategies require planning for learning, thinking about learning process as it is taking place, monitoring of one’s production or comprehension, and evaluating learning after an activity is completed. Where cognitive strategies may be more intuitive, although conscious, metacognitve strategies, particularly evaluating, are seen as those that distinguish more successful learners from the average. Cognitive strategies are those that “operate directly on incoming information, manipulating it in ways that enhance learning” (ibid.: 45). They are more limited to specific learning tasks and they involve more direct manipulation of the learning material itself. Rehearsal, organization, inferencing, summarizing, deducing, imagery, transfer and elaboration are the representative cognitive strategies. It has been suggested (Flavell, 1981) that one can distinguish cognitive strategies from metacognitive strategies. A cognitive strategy There are still vague boundaries between the two terms, especially in reading. According to Collin and Dickson, the reasons for these difficulties are: 1) It is difficult to distinguish metacognitive reading strategies from other reading processes such as thinking, reasoning and perceiving. 2) Reading once considered cognitive is now considered metacognitive. 3) The interchangeability in function of reading activities. 4) The result of varying development influence on strategy application. Metacognitive and cognitive strategies may overlap in that the same strategy, such as questioning, could be regarded as either a cognitive or a metacognitive strategy depending on what the purpose for using that strategy may be. For example, you may use a self-questioning strategy while reading as a means of obtaining knowledge (cognitive), or as a way of monitoring what you have read (metacognitive). Because cognitive and metacognitive strategies are closely intertwined and dependent upon each other, any attempt to examine one without acknowledging the other would not provide an adequate picture. 3.2 Classification of metacognition Metacognition can be further subdivided into metacognitive knowledge, metacognitive experience and metacognitive strategies. 3.2.1 Metacognitive knowledge Metacognitive knowledge consists primarily of knowledge or belief about what factors or variables act and interact in what ways to affect the course and outcomes of cognitive enterprises. Metacognitive knowledge refers to the part of one’s acquired world knowledge that has to do with cognitive (or perhaps better, psychological) matters (Flavell, 1987: 21). According to Flavell, metacognitive knowledge can be subdivided into three categories: knowledge of person variables; task variables; and strategy variables (See Figure 3.1). Figure 3.1 Metacognitive Knowledge Person variables Knowledge of person variables refers to the kind of acquired knowledge and beliefs that concern what human beings are like as cognitive (affective, motivational, perceptual, etc.) organisms (Flavell, 1987: 22). There are three subcategories of person variables: intraindividual; interindividual; and universal. Intraindividual variable is knowledge or belief about intraindividual variation in one’s or someone else’s interests, propensities, aptitudes, and the like. In the case of interindividual variables, the comparison is between, rather than within, persons. And universal knowledge is acquired ideas about universal aspects of human cognition or psychology (Flavell, 1987). Task variables The individual learns something about how the nature of the information encountered affects and constrains how one should deal with it. To comprehend and to deal effectively with such information, it is necessary to proceed slowly and carefully and to process deeply and self-critically (i.e., with high comprehension monitoring activity). Knowledge about task refers to awareness of the purpose and demands of the task, as well as an ability to assess the information provided, and to select what is relevant from what is irrelevant. In other words, it refers to what teachers know and what learners need to know about the purpose of a task; the task’s demand; and implicit in these considerations, determination of the kind of task it is. Strategy variables Knowledge of strategy involves an understanding of which strategies should be used for different types of tasks as well as a general knowledge about learning language. Strategy variables are a great deal of knowledge that can be acquired concerning what strategies are likely to be effective in achieving what subgoals and goals in what sorts of cognitive undertakings (Flavell, 1979). According to Wenden, it refers to general knowledge about what strategies are, why they are useful, and specific knowledge about when and how to use them. According to Wenden (1998), metacognitive knowledge refers to information learners acquire about self-regulatory processes such as planning, self-monitoring and self-evaluating. More researchers (Cross & Paris, 1988; Baker & Brown, 1984; Pereira-laid & Deane, 1987) complete metacognitive knowledge with the common views that it includes at least three kinds of knowledge: declarative knowledge, procedural knowledge and conditional knowledge. Declarative knowledge refers to knowing ‘what’ about things; procedural knowledge refers to ‘how’ to do things; conditional knowledge means ‘why’ and ‘when’ grasping of knowledge. Declarative knowledge usually is ‘static’ information in memory, and procedural knowledge is ‘dynamic’ information in memory. Declarative knowledge is propositional knowledge, referring to ‘knowing what’. A learner may know what a given reading strategy is, for example, he/she may know what summarization is and what summaries are. Procedural knowledge is ‘knowing how’ to perform various actions, for example, “how to study, how to deal with analogies, or how to write summaries” (Winograd & Hare, 1988, p.134). Conditional knowledge refers to ‘knowing why’, and includes the learner’s understanding the value or rationale for acquiring and using a strategy, and when to use it. Conditional knowledge is necessary if a reader is to know whether or not a certain strategy is appropriate, and whether or not it is working effectively for that learner. 3.2.2 Metacognitive experience Metacognitive experience is human’s awareness and comprehension of his cognitive activities. And metacognitive experiences are conscious experiences that are cognitive and affective. What makes them metacognitive experiences rather than experiences of another kind is that they have to do with some cognitive endeavor or enterprise, most frequently a current, ongoing one. For example, if one suddenly has the anxious feeling that one is not understanding something and wants and needs to understand it, that feeling would be a metacognitive experience. A metacognitive experience can be any kind of effective or cognitive conscious experience that is pertinent to the conduct of intellectual life; often, it is pertinent to conduct in an ongoing cognitive situation or enterprise. Metacognitive experiences play a very important role in everyday cognitive lives. In the beginning stage of cognitive activities, metacognitive experiences include difficulty of task, familiarity of task and confidence of task implement. Introspective self-questioning can activate individual’s metacognitive experiences, such as “What kind of question is?”, “What have I already known about it?”, “How difficult is it?”. During the process of cognitive activities, metacognitive experiences include experiences of ongoing activities, the sense of task difficulty. Introspective self-question can be covered like “How am I getting on with my work?”, “What is my difficulty of the work?”. In the latter process of cognitive activities, metacognitive experiences would be confined in the goal accomplishment, the achievement of the whole process. Introspective self-questions would be like “Did I reach my goal?”, “What have I learned from this activity?”. Flavell (1987) attaches great importance to metacognitive experiences and puts them in the same position of metacognitive knowledge. He believes that metacognitive experiences can have very important effects on cognitive goals or tasks, metacognitive knowledge and cognitive actions and strategies. Wang and Guo (2000) indicate metacognitive experiences in the three elements bridges metacognitive knowledge, the respectively static information, and regulatory action, the respectively dynamic information. As mentioned above, metacognitive knowledge, including declarative knowledge, procedural knowledge and conditional knowledge is preserved in human’s long-term memory, which would be available under the circumstance of being activated into the working-memory (short-term memory). Metacognitive experiences play the role of waking up the deeply buried metacognitive knowledge in the long-term memory into the working condition through ongoing awareness and observation of current activities. 3.2.3 Metacognitive strategies Both first and second language reading research has recently begun to focus on reading strategies. Reading strategies are of interest not only for what they reveal about the ways readers manage interactions with written text but also for how the use of strategies is related to effective reading comprehension. It turns out difficult to define strategies, partly because terms such as skills, strategies, processes/experience are used differently by different people. The term “strategy” is used deliberately, rather than the more traditional term “skills”, to refer to actions that readers select and control to achieve desired goals or objectives. Although there is no clear agreement on the ‘deliberate’ aspect of using strategies (cf. Wellman, 1988, on the one hand who says: “To be a strategy, the means must be employed deliberately, with some awareness, in order to produce or influence the goal” (p.5), and on the other hand Pressley, Forrest-Pressley, and Elliot-Faust, 1988, who say: “It is now recognized that strategy functioning at its best occurs without deliberation. It is more reflexive than voluntary” (p.102), overall, the emphasis with the term “strategies” is on “deliberative actions.” The term “strategies” emphasizes the reader’s active participation and actual way of doing something, or the reader’s performance, whereas the term “skills” may suggest the reader’s competence or only passive abilities which are not necessarily activated. A similar perspective on the relationship of “strategies” to “skills” has been provided by Paris et al. (1991): Skills refer to information-processing techniques that are automatic, whether at the level of recognizing grapheme-phoneme correspondence or summarizing a story. Skills are applied to a text unconsciously for many reasons including expertise, repeated practice, compliance with directions, luck, and naïve use. In contrast strategies are actions selected deliberately to achieve particular goals. An emerging skill can become a strategy when it is used intentionally. Likewise, a strategy can “go underground” and become a skill. Indeed strategies are more efficient and developmentally advanced when they become generated and applied automatically as skills. Thus, strategies are “skills under consideration” (Paris, Lipson & Wixson, 1983). There have been several attempts at categorizing metacognitive strategies, O’malley and Chamot (1990) claim that metacognitive strategies involve thinking about the learning process, planning for learning, monitoring of comprehension or production while it is taking place, and self-evaluation after the learning activity has been completed. Chamot and O’Malley (1990) have conducted a series of empirical research based on information processing theories and proposed a comprehensive list of learner strategies, of which the classification of metacognitive strategy is an important part listed as following. (1) planning: previewing the organizing concept or principle of an anticipated task (advanced organization); proposing strategies for handing an upcoming task; generating a plan for the parts, sequence, main ideas, or language function to be used in handling a task (organizational planning). (2) directed attention: deciding in advance to attend in general to a learning task and to ignore irrelevant distracters; maintaining attention during task execution. (3) selective attention: deciding I advance to attend to specific aspects of language input or situational details that assist in performance of a task,; attending to a specific aspect of language input during task execution. (4) self-management: understanding the conditions that help one successfully accomplish language tasks and arranging for the presence of those conditions, controlling one’s language performance to maximize use of what is already known. (5) self-monitoring: checking, verifying or correcting one’s comprehension or performance in the course of a language task. a. comprehension monitoring: checking or verifying one’s understanding b. production monitoring: checking, verifying or correcting one’s language production c. auditory monitoring: using one’s ears for the language (how something sounds) to make decisions d. visual monitoring: using one’s eyes for the language (how something looks) to make decisions e. style monitoring: checking, verifying, or correcting based on an internal stylistic register f. strategy monitoring: tracking use of how well a strategy is working g. planning monitoring: tracking how well a plan is working h. double-check monitoring: tracking across the task, previously undertaken acts or possibilities considered (6) problem identification: explicitly understand the central point needing resolution in a task or identifying an aspect of the task that hinders its successful completion. (7) self-evaluation: checking the outcome of one’s own language performance against an internal measure of completeness and accuracy; checking one’s language repertoire, strategy use, or ability to perform the task at hand. a. production evaluation: checking one’s work when the task is finished b. performance evaluation: judging one’s overall execution of the task c. ability evaluation: judging one’s ability to perform a task d. strategy evaluation: judging one’s own strategy use when the task is completed O’Malley and Chamot describe them as “higher order executive skills that may entail planning for, monitoring, or evaluating the success of a learning activity”. Where cognitive strategies may be more intuitive, although conscious, metacognitive strategies, particularly evaluating, are seen as those that distinguish more successful learners from the average (O’Malley and Chamot, 1990: 48). Among the metacognitive strategies, selective attention, planning, monitoring and evaluation are the most important ones. What’s more, planning is key metacognitive strategy for second/foreign language learning, involved in directing the course of language reception and production. The application of metacognitive strategies may be conscious or subconscious. In the initially developmental stage of metacognitive strategies, their application should be intentionally instructed; when metacognitive strategies develop into advanced stage, they may become automatic and subconscious (Wang & Guo, 2000). 3.3 Metacognitive Strategies in Reading Comprehension Research on metacognition in reading comprehension has identified self-regulatory processes that improve achievement and instructional practices that develop them. Palincsar and Brown (1984, 1989) described six strategies consistently found to monitor and foster comprehension: 1) clarifying the purpose of reading to determine the appropriate reading strategy; 2) activating relevant background knowledge and linking it to the text; 3) allocating attention to the important ideas; 4) evaluating content for internal consistency and compatibility with prior knowledge; 5) self-monitoring (e.g. by self-questioning) to verify comprehension; and 6) drawing and testing inferences. Metacognitively oriented readers are aware of both their own learner characteristics and the task demands, are able to select, employ, monitor, and evaluate their use of strategies, and are able to recognize and repair comprehension failures. They have a strong sense of the ‘meaningfulness’ of reading, appreciation of the value of self-testing, and recognition of the need to vary their strategies depending on their purpose (Palincsar & Brown, 1984, 1989). Baker (1989) reviewed some recent studies with adult readers. She found that in general, good readers, who are good students, appear to have more awareness and control over their own cognitive activities while reading than do poor readers. According to Brown and others, good readers regularly plan, attend to task demands, predict, use strategies to increase their comprehension and meet task requirements, check, monitor, reality test, control and coordinate their learning. Four effective reading comprehension strategies found by Jones, Amiran and Katims (1985) were: organizational, contextual and reflective thinking, and imagery strategies. Metacognitive reading skills include: skimming, activating relevant prior knowledge, constructing mental images, predicting, self-questioning, comprehension monitoring, summarizing and connecting new material with prior knowledge. Students cannot be competent with these skills because they are rarely taught and not everyone develops them independently. They need to be explicitly and continually addressed, practiced, polished and internalized. Improvements in these skills can lead to dramatic improvements in academic achievement. Students who are aware and in control of their metacognitive reading behaviors are at a distinct advantage because many of them involve monitoring one’s comprehension, taking steps to clarify difficulties and restoring the comprehension process when it has broken down. Effective instruction in metacognitive reading skills requires that teachers explain when, why, and how to use them, emphasize the value of flexibility in selecting specific skills to fit the particular context, provided guided practice on a range of texts, and give corrective feedback. Long and Long (1987) corroborated these findings in their comparison of the behaviors of more and less successful college readers. More successful readers see knowledge as an organization of concepts rather than as isolated facts; they strive to understand meanings and relationships rather than to recall details; and they test themselves to confirm that they know and remember what they have read. Moreover, they actively interact with the text rather than passively review and underlie it: they anticipate test questions, paraphrase, summarize, take notes, relate the text to their experience, make inferences beyond what is stated, and visually represent concepts. Self-questioning plays a strong role in these students’ comprehension monitoring and self-testing. A powerful method for improving reading comprehension through comprehension monitoring and self-questioning is Palincsar and Brown’s reciprocal teaching model (Hartman, 1994; Palincsar and Brown, 1984). In reciprocal teaching, the teacher models and explains four reading strategies and then supervises student practice of the strategies, gradually guiding students toward first participating in and then leading a small group. The ultimate goal is for students to become proficient enough to generate their own feedback. The four reading comprehension strategies taught in reciprocal teaching are questioning, summarizing (self-review), clarifying, and predicting. The reciprocal teaching technique is designed to help students generate and answer their own questions, to differentiate important content from trivial details, to monitor comprehension and find ways to clarify misunderstanding, and to activate prior knowledge and create expectations about future content. Using metacognitive strategies during reading puts the reader in a position of power and control. Metacognitive strategies are a series of skills used with a particular metacognitive knowledge in mind, being able to assess the situation, to plan, to select appropriate skills, to sequence them, to coordinate them, to monitor or assess their effectiveness and to revise the plan when necessary. Metacognitive process is responsible for planning, monitoring and evaluating performance. During the process, the learner communicates relevant information to the processes responsible for task execution and collects feedback from the performance process to evaluate the task execution. 3.4 Summary of the chapter This chapter was mainly about the theory of metacognition. It firstly reviewed the theory of metacognition and gave its definition and distinguished cognition from metacogniton. Then it followed by its classification of metacognition: metacognitive knowledge, metacogntive experience and metacognitive strategies. Lastly it presented metacognitive strategies in reading comprehension. Chapter 4 A Case Study on Application of Metacognitive Strategies to Instruction 4.1 Description of the Case Study This study is conducted to find whether metacognitive strategies are frequently used by Chinese undergraduates of non-English majors and what cognitive and metacognitive strategies are used by them. The following is a detailed description of the research questions. Question 1: Whether metacognitive awareness (consciousness) and knowledge play a role in the performance of reading comprehension? Question 2: Whether metacognitive awareness (consciousness) and knowledge play an important part in the students’ general English proficiency? Question 3: How students perform in the reading comprehension when the reading items involve metacognitive factors? Question 4: Does metacognitive strategies training play an important role in reading comprehension? Based on these objectives, an investigation combining a questionnaire and a controlled experiment was designed and carried out. Based on the findings of the questionnaire investigation and the controlled experiment, analysis was made to find out whether the designed questions have been answered and to what extent. The interpretation of the findings is followed by the conclusion of the experimenter. The following is the description of the investigation followed by a comparison of the findings with the experimenter’s empirical data collected from her experience in reading instruction. 4.1.1 Subjects The subjects entailed in the study came from three intact classes in East China Institute of Technology and were 145 in total number. They were second year students and one class consists of 53 students (36.6% of the total subjects, boys=21, girls=32) majoring in business, and the second class consists of 42 (29% of the total subjects, boys= 31, girls=11) majoring in automation, and the third class consists of 50 (34.4%, boys=35, girls=15) majoring in computer science. All the subjects were given 2 reading proficiency tests, which are the pre-test, and the post-test. After the reading pre-test, the automation class is randomly chosen to be the experiment class, and the other two classes are the control classes. Those who didn’t take part in the two tests were excluded from the statistical analysis. There were 145 subjects who took part in the tests and the questionnaire investigation, and 128 had completed the pre-tests and returned their response to the questionnaires. Therefore, the interpretation and analysis of the findings were based on the 128 valid samples. 4.1.2 Instruments Two kinds of instruments were employed in the study. The first one is the Metacognitive Strategies Questionnaire (MSQ) which was used to indicate what metacognitive strategies the college students usually employ. The second is the reading comprehension tests which were the College English Tests (Band Four) (CET-4, December, 2003 as an imitation of CET-4 and CET-4, June, 2004 as the real examination of CET-4). The reading comprehension tests were used to find out the students’ reading proficiency. 4.1.2.1 Questionnaire In this study, a questionnaire was administrated to collect information on the metacognitive strategies (strategies knowledge)and the task knowledge employed by collect English learners of non-English majors background in the process of English reading. The questionnaire contained thirty items and used 1-5 Likert Scale (A=strongly agree, E=strongly disagree). The questionnaire was developed primarily on the basis of a survey of available literature on metacognitive strategies of good learners (mainly of O’Malley, 1985, 1990; SILL, Oxford, 1986-1990). Chamot and O’Malley and SILL mentioned metacognitive strategies only in global second/foreign language learning activities, mainly in listening and speaking activities, and seldom concerned the specific metacognitive strategies used in reading comprehension. And some strategies mentioned by Chamot and O’Malley were too abstract and difficult to identify. Therefore, for the sake of research convenience, the author changed some abstract strategies into some specific ones. The thirty items include three main parts: personal information (knowledge), metacognitive strategies they use in English reading comprehension, and task knowledge. To ensure good validity and reliability, the questionnaire was written in Chinese to guard against the misunderstanding of some difficult words (Appendix 1). Items in the questionnaire include: a) four items (item 1-4) related to various aspects of a reader’s perceived ability to read in English, belonging to person knowledge; b) twenty-two items (item 5-26) pertaining to reading strategies, including cognitive and metacognitive strategies; c) four items (item 27-30) about the thing that makes reading in English difficult for them. 4.1.2.2 Reading comprehension tests The reading comprehension tests (Appendix II) employed in the study were chosen from the CET 4. The reason of selection of CET 4 is that it is required by the State Education Committee that non-English majors’ students should have the Band 4 English Proficiency when they finish the 4 College English Textbooks within 4 semesters or 2 years. And the subjects are in the second year, i.e., they should have the proficiency of CET-4. According to the CET authors, the reliability of reading comprehension components of CET-4 is considerably high and the internal consistency of the multiply choice reading comprehension test items included in the CET is above 0.90 (Yang & weir, 1999). Therefore, the reliability and validity of the comprehension tests are not tested. The pre-test consists of 4 short passages, each passage with 5 multiple-choice questions and therefore there are 20 questions in the test in total. The test must be finished within 35 minutes. 4.1.3 Data collection procedure The subjects attend the reading comprehension pre-test on the first of the semester; then, they fill in the questionnaire. These took the subjects nearly one hour to finish the pre-test (35minutes) and the questionnaire (20 minutes). The goal of the pre-test is to investigate what the subjects’ current reading proficiency, and the questionnaire is to examine subjects’ the use of metacognitive strategies. The pre-test and the questionnaire were under the supervision of the English teachers concerned. At the end of the semester, the students took part in the post-test after they had been trained in metacognitve strategies. 4.1.4 Data analysis The data include three parts. One is the students’ scores of the questionnaire. The second is the students’ scores of reading comprehension test. And the third is the students’ scores of general English proficiency. ...