A Study on Non-English Majors’ Reading Strategy Use in Fast Reading

○ Yao Yali Ling Qian

(College of Foreign Languages and Literature, Northwest Normal University, Lanzhou, Gansu, 730070)

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A Study on Non-English Majors’ Reading Strategy Use in Fast Reading

○ Yao Yali Ling Qian

(CollegeofForeignLanguagesandLiterature,NorthwestNormalUniversity,Lanzhou,Gansu, 730070)

This paper carried out a questionnaire to investigate the relationship between fast reading strategy and fast reading achievement. High-level and low-level students’ uses of reading strategy were compared. Based on these studies, this paper found out that skimming, scanning and inference were effective strategies in fast reading and it also provided suggestions for future fast reading strategy training.

fast reading, reading strategies, questionnaire survey

I. Introduction

People are exposed to a large quantity of information and grasping vast quantities of information in a limited time is necessary. Therefore, reading becomes a vital skill and having good reading skills not only helps readers get information quickly, but improves their understanding ability. Reading can be classified as intensive reading and fast reading. Intensive reading requires readers to read carefully, while fast reading aims to look through a passage to extract the key points, requesting readers to speed up reading speed and getting a great deal of information quickly. This study investigates what kinds of reading strategies do non-English majors frequently use in fast reading? And are there any differences between high-level and low-level readers’ reading strategy use?

Ⅱ. Research Design

2.1 Research questions

1) What kinds of reading strategies do non-English majors frequently use in fast reading?

2) Are there any differences between high-level and low-level readers in using reading strategies?

2.2 Participants

35 non-English majors participate in this study, and they were 18-20 years of age studied in Northwest Normal University.

2.3 Instrument

The questionnaire contains four parts, CET-4’s score, a brief introduction of the questionnaire, the explanation of Likert’s five-point scale and 34 questions with reference to Wang Ying and Liu Yinqin’s questionnaire on investigating non-English major’s fast reading strategy use.

2.4 Procedure

35 questionnaires were handed out, but only 31 were effective. According to scores, students were divided into three levels; scores higher than 535 was high level; scores lower than 474 was low level; and the rest was middle level. Data were analyzed by SPSS 20.0. Mean and standard deviation (SD) were used to describe which strategies were frequently used, and by analyzing the mean and SD of three different level students to find out their differences in using reading strategy.

Ⅲ. Results and Discussion

According to Oxford (1990), the mean showed the frequency of strategy use by participants; higher than 3.5 shows high frequency; less than 3.5 but higher than 3.0 means intermediate frequency; less than 3.0 but higher than 2.5 is the use between intermediate and low frequency; less than 2.5 states low frequency.

The mean and SD were analyzed and the rank of the strategy use was listed. The data shows that item 30, 13, 26, 29, 25, 16, 19, 08, 27, 18, 15, 14, 17, 11, 31, 21, 22, 20 and 34 were frequently used by readers. Students were most likely to look at the questions first and then to find the answer; and they preferred to guess the meaning of unfamiliar words by contents. Besides, many students were accustomed to mark the key words to find the information. While for item 01, 12, 32, and 33, students were less likely to use. Students seldom had their own fast reading exercises and they spent little time reading English newspaper, magazines and novels after class; and students seldom share their reading experiences with others.

In order to investigate the difference of high-level and low-level students’ reading strategy use, the mean and SD of the three-level students’ strategy use were analyzed. First, the total of the three means showed that high-level students used more reading strategies than both middle-level and low-level students. For item 08, 09, 11, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 25, 26, 27, 29, 30 and 34, all those reading strategies were frequently used by the three level students. Item 08, 13, 19, 30, 34 were frequently used by high-level students; they behaved well in guessing the meaning of unfamiliar words by content and word formation; when doing fast reading, high-level students were more absorbed in it. Meanwhile, high-level students preferred to look at the questions first and then to find the answer; they would like to predict the content by headings and subheadings. However, both the high-level and low-level students were not good at sharing reading experience with others or rewarding themselves for the reading improvement. Furthermore, for high-level, middle-level and low-level students, they all seldom had own fast reading exercises and spent little time reading English newspaper, magazines or novels after class.

Ⅳ. Conclusion

The study finds out that high-level students do well in

using different reading strategies; readers prefer to look at questions first, and then to find the answer; for unfamiliar words, they guess the meaning according to the context; they tend to mark key words to locate the important information, like person name, geographical name, time, subtitles and numbers; when they are confused, readers tend to skip first and clarify from the later clues. High-level students behave better in guessing unfamiliar words by contexts and word formation, and they are more concentrated on fast reading test. Low-level students seldom have a clear goal to improve reading ability and hardly do fast reading exercises after class.

In summary, reading strategy is important for readers to improve reading speed and grasp a quantity of information in a limited time; and the more frequently readers use reading strategies, the better they behave in fast reading. Therefore, students should do fast reading exercises and read English newspaper, magazines or novels regularly to broaden background knowledge and

increase vocabulary. Teachers should train students to use correspondent strategy, like scanning for specific information and skimming for the main idea and help students overcome bad reading habits, like finger-pointing, reading aloud, sub-vocalizing and mental translation. In this way, English fast reading will present a bright future.

[1]Zhang, X. R., Liu, R. B. 2000. Learning strategies and their relationship to learning achievement in reading comprehension—A report on non-English majors in China[J].Teaching English in China, 1.

[2] 教育部高等教育司.大學英語課程教學要求[M].外語教學與研究出版社，2007.

[3] 王英，劉寅齊.關于非英語專業本科生快速閱讀策略運用的調查[J].山東外語教學，2010(4).

[4] 文秋芳.英語學習成功者與不成功者在方法上的差異[J].外語教學與研究，1995(3).

姚雅麗，女，四川成都人，西北師范大學外國語學院碩士研究生，研究方向：英語教學論。

H319

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1672-8610(2015)06-0167-02

非英語專業學生快速閱讀策略的使用研究

姚雅麗 凌茜

(西北師范大學 外國語學院，甘肅 蘭州 730070)

本文使用調查問卷探討非英語專業學生快速閱讀策略運用與快速閱讀成績之間的關系。通過對比高、低分組學生閱讀策略使用的異同，分析得出尋讀、略讀和推斷是快速閱讀中高效使用的策略，并對快速閱讀培訓提出建議。

快速閱讀； 閱讀策略； 調查問卷