An empirical study of intermediate and advanced Chinese learners of Japanese language about reading strategies based...

Since the 1970s, significant progress has been made in the field of L2 education regarding reading strategies, both theoretically and practically. However, there is limited research specifically on reading strategies for Chinese learners of Japanese. As the most authoritative test, JLPT (Japanese-Language Proficiency Test) has been widely valued, and the number of applicants has increased year by year. Therefore, in order to provide reference for learners of Japanese language, we conducted an questionnaire on Japanese reading strategies based on think-aloud protocols (TAPs) with 28 valid participants.

In this paper, 30 s and third grade college students were initially recruited, and 2 participants with prior familiarity with the experimental materials were excluded, with a final valid sample of 28 students selected by TAPs, and N1 test was used as experimental material. Before the experiment, several survey questions were drawn up. It can be summarized as follows: (1) What are the characteristics of reading strategies used by intermediate and advanced Chinese learners of Japanese language? (2) What is the relationship between the number of reading strategies used by intermediate and advanced learners and their reading scores? (3) What are the differences in reading strategies used by intermediate and advanced learners? Then, the learners' think aloud data were textualized and the reading strategies used by individual learners were classified according to the SORS' classification benchmarks for reading strategies. To further explore the relationship between reading strategies and reading scores, several SPSS statistical methods were also used to analyze the data in this study.

(1) There was a moderate positive correlation between the use of global reading strategies used by all learners and their reading scores (r = 0.61, p = 0.000). There was a moderate negative correlation between the use of problem-solving strategies and the reading scores of all learners (r = -0.47, p = 0.01). (2) Advanced learners used problem-solving strategies the least. There was a moderate positive correlation between global reading strategies and reading scores used by advanced learners (r = 0.48, p = 0.03). (3) Intermediate learners use global reading strategies the least. There was a moderate positive correlation between global reading strategies and reading scores used by intermediate learners (r = 0.48, p = 0.03). (4) There were significant differences among global reading strategies, problem-solving strategies and support reading strategies used by intermediate and advanced learners.

(1) A greater use of global reading strategies was associated with higher reading scores, while increased use of problem-solving strategies was associated with lower reading scores for all learners. (2) Advanced learners who used more global reading strategies had higher reading scores. (3) The more global reading strategies intermediate learners used, the higher their reading scores were. (4) Significant differences were observed in the reading strategies used by intermediate and advanced learners. According to the differences, some constructive suggestions can be put forward in Japanese reading teaching.