Correlative Study Of Chinese Senior High School Students' Foreign Language Reading Anxiety And English Achievement

Since 1970s, the focus of second language acquisition has shifted from the way that teachers teach to the way that learners learn. It is more and more realized that the success of second language acquisition depends largely on the learner himself. . Krashen's Affective Filter Hypothesis suggests that learners are distracted by affective factors in second language acquisition, while foreign language anxiety is one of the most important affective variables in it. English Curriculum Criterion issued by China Ministry of Education in 2003 emphasizes students' emotional attitudes, clearly pointing out that they are the most essential factors which affect students' study and development. At the end of 20^th century, Saito and his researchers attempted to design the Foreign Language Reading Anxiety Scale (FLRAS). They are the first to indicate that there are not only differences but also relations between foreign language reading anxiety and general foreign language anxiety. As a consequence, it is the attempt to identify more specially the sources of anxiety and the relationship between anxiety and various second language proficiencies that comes to a new trend in language anxiety research.Saito et al also reported that foreign language anxiety varies according to the target language and that it is of great theoretical and pedagogical importance to understand how anxiety reactions in reading affect learners of English as a foreign language. In reality, almost all the available researches on reading anxiety nowadays are cross-sectional in nature, of which the very few related researches were conducted in the western background or from the angle of college students while researches set on senior high school students, especially in China were even fewer. Therefore, the main focus of the study was to explore the relationship between senior high school students' reading anxiety and their English achievements and other important variables, such as gender difference, grade difference, expectation of English learning and satisfaction with previous English achievement among Chinese senior high school students who learn English as a foreign language.The study was mainly cross-sectional, combined with the longitudinal method. All the data for the study were collected by using questionnaires and scores of English achievements. With the help of SPSS 11.0, measures such as descriptive statistics, frequency analysis, independent sample T tests, Pearson correlation analysis were computed with the target samples. The quantitative findings indicated that reading in English is indeed anxiety provoking to senior high school students in China. FLCAS (the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale) has a significant positive correlation with FLRAS. Besides, FLRAS have a significant negative correlation with English achievement. That is to say, the level of FLRAS directly affects the English grades. However, it seems that FLCAS can be used as a predicator of English proficiency more than FLRAS. As for senior high school students in the same grade, significant class difference has been found between FLCAS and FLRAS. Cross-sectional study tends to show no significant gender difference in terms of reading anxiety. No significant difference has been found between different variables of different ages and grades, either. In the meanwhile, eight-month longitudinal research witnesses no significant change in FLRAS. The study also shows that students' expectation of learning English has a significant negative correlation with FLRAS while positive with English achievement. In another word, the higher achievement scores the students get, the higher expectation of English learning and more confidence they have with lower reading anxiety. What's more, as for the students who have different satisfaction with their previous English achievement, a significant difference actually exists between FLRAS and English grades. The more satisfaction with their previous English achievement, the lower reading anxiety and higher English grades the students will produce. Whereas, the proper anxiety plays a positive role, helping senior high school students' English learning, for it can make most of their potential.As far as the results of my study are concerned, some leading ways of decreasing improperly high levels of FLRAS are suggested. As a consequence of the extremely important role reading plays in English teaching of senior high schools, English teachers ought to be sufficiently aware that FLRAS has a significant influence on students' English learning achievements and that it is high time they took appropriate measures in time to decrease levels of FLRAS and improve the efficiency of reading activities.