A Study On Foreign Language Reading Anxiety Of University English Majors

Reading, considered world widely as a component of foreign language learning and performance, is generally observed as involving less"communication apprehension"defined by Horwitz et al (1991). However, with the development of studies on the relationship between foreign language anxiety and specific aspects of foreign language learning, reading is proved also closely related to anxiety level. As Saito et al. pointed out, foreign language reading anxiety"diverges in an important way from general foreign language learning anxiety"(Saito, Garza, & Horwitz, 1999). Saito et al (1999) also introduced a special instrument, Foreign Language Reading Anxiety Scale (FLRAS), for measuring levels of foreign language reading anxiety, which has not been put into wide use or test. By adopting the FLRAS, the present study attempts to explore the situation of reading anxiety among students whose mother language is Chinese, with English as their target language, as well as to examine the relationship between foreign language reading anxiety and reading performance, with the ultimate purpose to find out the possible sources of reading anxiety thus to provide practical advice for our English teachers dealing with reading teaching tasks.This paper consists of six chapters. The first chapter introduces the background for the current research, under which are elicited the significance and the purpose of the current study. The second chapter presents a review of the related studies, both home and abroad, on foreign language anxiety, foreign language reading anxiety and their methodologies, including explication of basic concepts. The third chapter introduces the major theories as the theoretical foundation for the present study, which are Krashen's Input hypothesis and his affective filter hypothesis, Tobias three-stage model for foreign language anxiety as well as the major measurement device of FLRAS. Chapter four presents the methodology of this study, including introduction of research questions, subjects, three instruments, and researching procedure. Chapter five presents the detailed researching process including data collection and results of analyses. The last chapter draws a conclusion based on the three research questions, including the major findings and pedagogical implications.The present study, which takes 100 first-year English major in China as the subjects and adopts FLRAS, CET-4 scores and an interview as its instruments, aims to answer three research questions: 1) Do English majors experience anxiety when they are confronted with English reading tasks? 2) Is there a correlation between reading anxiety and the reading performance among English majors? 3) What are the potential sources of reading anxiety? It is found that 1) English majors do experience anxiety when they are confronted with English reading tasks (mean score=67.63, total=100). Male subjects experience FL reading anxiety (69.22), a little higher than female subjects do (66.08). 2) Reading anxiety level is significantly correlated with reading performance among English majors (correlation coefficient = -0.225). English majors tend to perform badly if they feel anxious when reading English materials. 3) The possible sources from which reading anxiety may have been caused are such facts as lack of reading strategies, pressure of time limit set by the reading exercises or reading tests, low self-evaluation or low self-confidence on reading ability.Based on the above findings, this study puts forward the following pedagogical suggestions for teachers or educators dealing with reading teaching tasks. Firstly, teachers could prepare their students for the possibility of reading difficulties to help students to realize the existence of reading anxiety because consciousness of reading anxiety can help students to recognize the reading anxiety-provoking situations and thus take the initiative to face the problem, which eventually lead to the overcoming of reading anxiety. Secondly, teachers are recommended to be aware of their appropriate teaching methodology of reading which is quite significant to help students especially the freshmen English majors to form correct reading habits and reading strategies. Thirdly, teachers are supposed to always encourage students to decode on their ability a given reading material by such ways as ranging group activities to crack reading tasks, let students air their own opinions, both of which serve as effective ways to form their confidence on reading ability which plays an important role in decreasing reading anxiety level.