Introduction

Research Background

Reading is a crucial ability for people to know the world. For college students,reading comprehension skill is the key aptitude in learning a language. Form the point viewof cognition, reading plays an important role in analyzing, monitoring and complementingissues. Reading skill has been permeated in people’s life. For one thing, students need toupgrade the thinking and cognitive ability in solving problems (Grave et al, 2003). Whenstudents come across practical issues such as reading a book, communicating with others,and writing articles, they need to use reading comprehension skill to conduct these behaviors.For another thing, college students need to pass the CET-4 (college English test). In the test,reading comprehension takes up a bigger percentage. As a result, enhancing the readingability for college students is extremely urgent. One of the teachers’ responsibilities is toimprove students’ performance in learning English. A variety of learning strategies have beenput forward to cater to the need of learning a second language. Metacognitive strategies caneffectively consolidate the foundation of what a student has learned; meanwhilemetacognitive strategies can enormously boost the interests of learners. KWL strategy is oneof the metacognitive strategies firstly proposed by Donna Ogle (professor of National-LouisUniversity in United States) in 1986. She advocated that KWL strategy is useful in increasingthe interest of learner, helping readers to read expositional articles finally enhancing students’skill in reading (Ogle, 1986). She believes that KWL can be an effective strategy to teachstudents in writing. KWL strategy has been largely used in American writing class. Ogle alsoholds the ideas that KWL strategy can help students to think positively, set up definitelearning goals, and have an efficient reflection of what they have learned. KWL strategy willhelp researchers to study metacognitive strategy in improving the learning and teaching forChinese learners and teachers.

…………

Purpose and Significance of the Research

According to the research of Su Dingfang professor in Shanghai International StudiesUniversity, a great number of teaching problems have been obvious in the practical teaching recently(束定芳,2009). These malpractices can be divided into four aspects, the shortage ofresearch of China’s teaching policy, the lack of constructional system of teaching theory, thesubjectivity of research method, low level of repetitive inefficient practice. The situation ofteaching in college reading class can be easily depicted from the four above generalmalpractices. Teachers in college actually have taken some metacognitve strategy to enrichthe forms of teaching reading. However, the construction of theoretical system in China stillneeds guidance and improvement. Scholars have been doing research about all kind ofmetacognitive strategies in order to boost the performance of learning English. Severaleffective metacognitve strategies have been put forward and tested in various classes, writingreading or listening class in China or abroad. KWL strategy is comparatively new especiallyin China. For Chinese teachers, KWL strategy has not been fully theoretically tested forlearning a language.

…………

Chapter One Literature Review

1.1 KWL Strategy

According to the research of Ogle, K represents what students know about the topic.Teachers provide easy reading materials for students to read, pictures, paintings or drawingincluded. Teachers should activate or encourage students to discuss what they know about thetopic. Brainstorming is a good way for discussion to activate prior knowledge (Ogle, 1986).Teachers can give some hints for students to think about all the stuff related to the topic.Unrelated information should not be involved. For instance, an article about earthquake is thereading material. In the K procedure, teachers should inspire students by asking questionslike: what do you know about earthquake. In this way, the key word will be noticed andmastered by students directly. If the teacher asks what students have know about naturaldisaster, this kind of warming-up question will make the cognition of the students deviatefrom the core. Let students fill all they know into K column. Teachers can encourage studentsto explain the reason why they think of these aspects (何俊青, 2002).

………….

1.2 Foreign Studies of KWL Strategy

KWL strategy was first put forward by Ogle in 1986. She believes KWL strategy isuseful in reading expository articles. Based on the constructivism theory, KWL strategy hasbeen raised by Ogle to assist students to read articles. Constructivism stemmed fromcognitive psychology, integrated by Piaget et al to represent the take-in, digest and intakeprocedures (Ogle, 1986). These constructivists such as Piaget Dewey believe constructivismcan describe the process of accepting new information to integrate prior knowledge. Thisprocess is an active process with the characteristic of active construction of new information.Students are not passive to accept all the information teachers give. Prior knowledge has beenactivated by the intake of new knowledge. Instructors are not passively or repetitively givingorders or providing new knowledge to the students (Fosnot, 1989). Compared withconstructivism, KWL strategy has been erected in the same cognitive process. Both of thetwo theories have accented the importance of integration of prior knowledge with newinformation, the active process of cognition, and the sheer circulation process of learning.KWL strategy has stressed the process of metacognitive learning, which can facilitatestudents to be a better reader meanwhile coordinating teachers to conduct more interactionwith students. For students, KWL is an effective learning strategy which can be used in thepre-mid-post reading. Expository text and nonfiction text will be preferable for using KWL.Moreover, KWL can be applied into reading some complex articles or learning some specialskills such as drawing or poetry creation. Generally speaking, KWL can be used in any fieldsto assist students to write research report, cultivate students to be active thinkers; even theconfidence of students can be consolidated and enhanced (Glazer, 1999).

…………….

Chapter Three Research Methodology .........24

3.1 Research Methodology .........24

3.2 Experimental Preparation .....24

3.3 KWL Strategy Training.........25

Chapter Four Data Analysis........28

4.1 Analysis of Scores of the Tests .........28

4.2 General Analysis .......37

Chapter Five Discussion of the Research .....39

5.1 Analysis of Questionnaires for KWL .....39

5.2 Discussion of the Experiment.....44

5.3 Evaluation of KWL Strategy ......45

5.3.1 Advantages.......45

5.3.2 Limitations .......49

Chapter Five Discussion of the Research

5.1 Analysis of Questionnaires for KWL

Table 5.1.1 has shown the results of questionnaire about comprehension skill. The tablebelow visually demonstrates the status of students’ choices. Without doubts, most studentshave noticed the importance of reading in English learning. For question 4, most studentsagree with the idea that vocabulary can play a decisive and imperative role in reading. Fromquestion 5 and 6, most students believe in the strategy teachers provide and think plenty ofreading exercise is necessary. More than 50% of the students claim that the improvement ofreading comprehension skill need a long period of time; besides, their reading habit can notbe easily modified. The KWL strategy should be effective and accepted by studentsotherwise the applicability can not be realized. More than 53% of the students like the multiple choice in the comprehension test.They prefer to take this test than the ask-answer question. 56% of the students do not knowwhether the strategy they are using is effective. They have no idea whether to change thestrategy. Teachers need to help those students out to choose their strategy to improve thereading comprehension skill. Most of the students would like to get instruction from teachers.

…………..

Conclusion

The three research questions have been put forward in the previous chapters, therelations between KWL strategy and the comprehension skill of college students, theeffectiveness of KWL strategy, and the evaluations of KWL by both students and teachers.KWL is a kind of metacognitive strategy will allow readers to monitor the cognitive activityin reading. The three main steps of KWL can be summarized as “know”, “what” and “learn”.The relations between comprehension skills and KWL have respectively been represented inthe prior knowledge, the questions readers are curious about and the learned information.Prior knowledge can be activated to cite the new information which can presuppose the newidea of thought for comprehension (Ogle, 1986). What readers would like to read can play acrucial role in stimulating the passion and enthusiasm for reading which will provide morehints for looking for the expected answers. Learned knowledge can make readers to evaluatetheir reading performance independently. The whole three steps have close relations withcomprehension skills.

…………

Reference (omitted)