Chapter One Introduction

1.1 Research Background

For most language learners, reading skill is regarded essential or the most important oneto master (Anderson, 2004). And since the 1970s，researchers in western countries haveshifted their attention from teaching to learning, from teachers to learners since the process oflearning was far more attractive and significant in evidence (Oxford, 1990). Thus in mostcases，whether consciously or unconsciously, learners apply certain skills to help themovercome difficulties and obtain information. So compared with other aspects that is relatedwith second language reading proficiency, strategies in the process of reading is of specialimportance. Scholars like Hosenfeld (1977)，Bereiter & Bird (1985)，Phakiti (2003) andAnderson (2004) all focus their attention on reading strategies investigation in various aspects.They point out that reading is a cognitive process that requires mastering certain techniques,while this kind of skill varies from person to person in view of various linguistic competences.Some deliberate training on strategies can help apparently improve the reading effectiveness.Therefore, strategies are significant in reading.To。，Malley & Chamot，strategies are "the special thoughts or behaviors that individualsuse to help them comprehend, leam，or retain new information" (1990，p. 1). Based ontheories of information processing and cognition constructivism, they classify strategies intocognitive strategies, meta-cognitive strategies and social-affective strategies. It is generallyconsidered that their classification is an overall and systematical categorization，makingmeaningful significance. Others like Rubin (1981)，Nisbet & Shucksmith (1986)，Oxford(1990) and Cohen (1998) are somewhat similar but not so inclusive in comparison. The latterstudies especially domestic scholars mostly do intensive discussion based on that three-waystatement (Lv & Tu，1998; Liu, 2002; Pan, 2012).

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1.2 Purpose and Significance of the Study

Since the "variations in the nature of the experienced difficulty，however, could give riseto different strategic action，’ (Bereiter & Bird，1985，p. 132)，the application of strategiesdiffers greatly in specific situation. In other words, there are significant variations in themesand styles of the contents，and people use different strategies or approaches to read differenttexts (Jiang & Gao，2009). In view of the growing popularity of newspaper reading, which hasbecome an optional course for college students and a compulsory course for English majors，this study mainly focuses on strategies application for newspaper reading by English majorjuniors. Therefore, an empirical study on strategies in newspaper reading is beneficial for bothteachers and students. What's more，from cognitive perspective, this descriptive study is anintensive discussion about cognitive strategies, meta-cognitive strategies and social-affectivestrategies in specific context. Lastly, it is also hopes that think-aloud protocol, the voicedintrospective method with outstanding features of availability and veridicality，can providereference for the related data collection, so as to diversify research methodology.The present study on newspaper reading strategies of English major juniors addresses thefollowing questions:

1. What are the concrete strategies those students use in the process of newspaperreading?

2. Considering cognitive strategies, meta-cognitive strategies and social-affectivestrategies，what is the sequence of Chinese English majors' use of learning strategies innewspaper reading?

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Chapter Two Literature Review

2.1 The Reading Process

Reading process is often concluded as an activity in information extoction from thecontent, which comes into being with the creation of characters. Since the words are scriptedto symbolize language, reading has become an essential part in learning and retaininginformation for human experience transmission. Before the 1960s，it was defined as theprocess of linguistic signs decoding in construction from word, phrase and sentence tomeaning. Buswell，respectively published: A Study of Their Development (1922)，How PeopleLook at Pictures (1935)，How Adults Read (1937)，regarded reading as a cognitive process insymbol manipulation rather than implicit language simplification, from his conclusion，thatprocess in meaning construction would be traced back to semiotic visual analysis.Later the 1960s，non-verbal elements, such as the influence of prior knowledge，weretaken into consideration with the development of psychological linguistic and cognitiveresearch. Goodman viewed reading as an interactive "psycholinguistic guessing game" (1967，p. 489) in both language and thought. So reading process is a mental activity which manifestswith the combination of both the prior knowledge and new information. Based on this, thatprocess is further considered by Widdowson (1979) to be a communication in conversationbetween the reader and writer with various subjects in support of comprehension, such assyntactic and paradigmatic knowledge, overall common sense to the outside world, socialcultural conception and personal background in distinction.

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2.2 Researches on Language Learning Strategies

Researches on language learning strategies are often known as a result of psychologyand cognitive science development. As a branch of cognitive learning theory, constructivelearning theory is much more a further progress of it. Based on constructive learning theory，leaning is regarded as an active progress in internal representation construction. That is，instead of teachers’ instruction，according to some social-cultural context，the learners acquireknowledge. For example, the assistance or support from teachers and partners. So knowledgeis not constructed simply on the basis of mind blank or similar background. When leaning anew concept, the existing factors like knowledge, belief，personality and sensibility are allinvolved to some extent.Following with cognitive learning theory, constructivism is a profound transformationthat is leamer-centered. It emphasizes how the previous experience, psychological structureand faith are managed to construct new knowledge by each individual. Naturally，thesubjective factors such as self-studying, sociality and context are much more attractive andworth attention. Researchers on language learning strategies analyze mostly from theperspective of learners, which are student-centered approach based on. It starts from the pointof their learning features, and recognizes their cognitive structure and study maimer.

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Chapter Three Methodology.......     17

3.1 Purposes .......    17

3.2 Participants.......   17

3.3 Material.......   18

3.4 Procedure....... 19

3.4.1 Training.......   19

3.4.2 The Think-Aloud Task....... 20

3.4.3 Data Collection and Transcription....... 21

3.5 Coding System  ....... 22

3.6 Summary 25Chapter Four Results and Discussion.......     27

4.1 Think-Aloud Protocol....... 27

4.2 Strategy Use .......28

4.3 Analysis on Cognitive Strategies, Meta-Cognitive Strategies....... 35

Chapter Five Conclusion .......41

5.1 Major Findings .......41

5.2 Implications and Suggestions .......  41

5.3 Limitations and Suggestions for Future Study .......43

Chapter Four Results and Discussion

4.1 Think-Aloud Protocol

The overall time people spent reading approximately range from about 22 minutes to 48，which are about 16 minutes distance. Students A and B, two males, are close in time expense,yet students C and D are quite different even though they are of the same gender. Althoughthe average time, 36: 22，is comparatively not short in time devotion, the methodology itself isan important reason in slowing down the speed.Silent reading time suggests that the thoughts that are voiced by the readers may not allinclusive. In their silent time, no words are voiced，participants reserve some informationwhich is not so mature to express in that very moment, or they are mind blank in a short haul.Student D who spends the longest time in this task, however, also silences more than 9minutes without expression，while C is just the opposite. Although students A and B are closein total time, their silent time is quite different. The shorter silent time of A and C indicatesthat their reports are relatively complete.The above relevant data propose that all readers are capable of performing think-aloudtask after proper training. Everyone voices expression rather than give up. They are close ininformation provision even in different time consumption. It seems that on account ofdifferent speed and reaction, the length of the transcribed text is not so much related to time，for instance, student C voices about 6,002 words in 22: 10 minutes while student D voices7,006 words in almost 48: 37 minutes. From the perspective of recorded content, all thespeakers appear a little bit of nervous or discomfort at the very beginning but loosen up soonafter dedicated reading. Occasionally, some students will complain their frustration orimpatience，for example, “不'廣”，“好烦”，but soon direct their attention to keep on doing.Thus readers are firm in accomplishing this task with conscious awareness, irrelevantinterference is able to manage.

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Conclusion

By means of empirical method of think-aloud, this paper examines and descriptivelydiscusses the newspaper reading strategies of English major juniors. In terms of related theoryand literature review, practical investigation, detailed discussion and comparative analysis, theconclusion chapter will be drawn into three sections including the summary of major findings,some implications and proposals，limitations and suggestions for further study. With regard to the two questions that have been mentioned in the first chapter，the majorfindings are presented as follows:Firstly，English major juniors do use some strategies in English newspaper reading.There are all together 20 strategies，4 of which are most frequently used: translation, delayedproduction, segmentation and repetition; whereas 4 strategies are seldom or never used:resourcing, transferring, recognizing structure and skipping. This suggests that readingstrategies are limited to a small scope in difficult reading. As second language learners, theyfail to get rid of thinking in a "Chinese" way. So their native language serves a transitionalmedium function in code-switching. What's more，people tend to employ different readingstrategies and approaches to different texts.

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Reference (omitted)