A Study On The Relationship Among Senior One Students’ Ambiguity Tolerance,english Reading Anxiety And English Reading Grades In Ethnic Minority Areas

Reading takes an important place in English teaching.It not only provides students with language input,but also can gradually develop students’ thinking quality.For its role,topics related to English reading have been attracting the attention of educators and researchers.They are interested in the factors that affect reading achievement.Among these factors,ambiguity tolerance and English reading anxiety are major ones.The present study is to probe into the relationship among ambiguity tolerance,English reading anxiety and English reading grades.Ambiguity tolerance is known as how people react to some ambiguities in a given situation.English reading anxiety refers to the negative feelings and attitudes that people display during the process of English reading.There is no doubt that students may not comprehend general meaning of a text due to a shortage of vocabulary and grammar knowledge,or they may not have a grasp of the structure and plots of a text due to a lack of required knowledge of the discourse and cultural background.These are ambiguities in reading that can hinder students from reading and cause students’ anxiety,which further affects their English reading grades.The specific questions proposed are as follows.1.What are the general situations of senior high school students’ ambiguity tolerance,English reading anxiety,and English reading grades in ethnic minority areas?2.What are the differences in ambiguity tolerance and English reading anxiety of Han students and ethnic minority students?3.What are the correlations among ambiguity tolerance,English reading anxiety and English reading grades?4.Does English reading anxiety mediate between ambiguity tolerance and English reading grades? If yes,what is the characteristic of such mediating effect?Specifically,the study takes 751 high school students from ethnic minority regions in Yunnan as research subjects.The researcher distributes questionnaire sheets,and standardized reading test papers to students in seven schools in ethnic minority regions.After collecting data,SPSS 22.0 is used to analyze data to answer the above research questions,and the results are found in the following.1.Students’ overall ambiguity tolerance is not high and English reading anxiety is at a moderate level.As for English reading grades,students’ overall reading grades are not so high.2.There is significant difference in English reading anxiety of Han and ethnic minority students.The reading anxiety of the ethnic minority students is stronger than that of Han students,but no difference in ambiguity tolerance.3.They are significantly correlated with each other.To be specific,there is a negative relationship between ambiguity tolerance and English reading anxiety,and a negative correlation between English reading anxiety and English reading grades,but ambiguity tolerance and English reading grades are positively correlated.4.Reading anxiety plays a partial mediating role between ambiguity tolerance and English reading grades.Finally,the findings also give the implications for teaching and learning,and provide suggestions for instructors to increase students’ ambiguity tolerance and reduce students’ reading anxiety appropriately.Besides,the study points out the limitations and provides suggestions for future research.