A Study On The Correlation Between Tolerance Of Ambiguity And Students’ English Reading Achievements In Senior High School

As an important way of gaining knowledge and information,reading plays an important role in English learning in senior high school.Individual’s reading ability is influenced by many factors.One of the significant factors,tolerance of ambiguity(TOA),influences the cognition and it has a close relationship with reading ability.There are some studies on TOA in second language acquisition in the early 1970s;however,studies on the correlation between TOA and English reading ability are few.Therefore,this research explores the correlation between students’ TOA and English reading abilities in senior high school so as to provide some advice for English reading teaching in senior high school.To approach the result,this study uses quantitative method and qualitative method to explore the following questions:(1)what is the general situation of students’ TOA in senior high school?(2)What is the correlation between senior high school students’ TOA and English reading achievements?(3)What is specific correlation between TOA and senior high school students’ English reading achievements in different text types?This study adopts the methods of questionnaire,test and interview,and chooses 60 students from Grade Three from two parallel classes of a senior high school in Panjin city as research subjects so as to analyze the correlation between TOA and senior high school students’ English reading achievements.First of all,Ely’s Second Language Tolerance of Ambiguity Scale(SLTAS)is used to measure the subjects’ TOA.Then,the reading part of college entrance examination English paper in 2016 is chosen to test the subjects’ English reading abilities.Finally,this study adopts Excel to analyze and process the data collected by the experiment,and SPSS20.0 is used to make descriptive analysis and correlation analysis according to the related data.The results of study reveal thin senior high school students’ TOA is in a lower-middle level.There is an obvious positive correlation between senior high school students’ TOA and English reading achievements,that is,if students have a higher level of TOA,they will have better English reading achievements.The correlation between TOA and English reading achievements in narration and argumentation is stronger than the correlation between TOA and reading achievements in exposition.Finally,based on the teaching practice,this study proposes some suggestions for improving senior high school students’ TOA and English reading abilities.In the end,this research is expected to provide some valuable references for further study.