Strategies Used in EFL Reading Comprehension: The Case Study of Seven Chinese High School Students

Abstract

Reading skill plays an important role in the English education in China especially when English reading is tested on an exam paper. Using a delayed retrospective questionnaire, this paper aims at eliciting EFL reading strategies from seven Chinese high school students. The results show that most of the students are able to adopt cognitive strategies, in their reading progress, such as memorizing, using background knowledge, underlining the key information, and finding clues from the context. However, low-proficiency students tend to use fewer strategies than high-proficiency students due to either limited English competence or a lack of self-confidence. In addition, all of them also adopt testing strategies such as skimming and scanning, but very few have an awareness of meta-cognitive strategy that refers to self-reflection on effective EFL learning method. Pedagogical implications are discussed, and possible suggestions are proposed for this EFL community.