A Correlational Study Of Secondary Vocational Non-english Majors' English Reading Anxiety And Reading Achievement

In order to enhance foreign language teaching and learning, a lot of researchers and teachers have done numerous studies on learners'affective variables, shifting the focus from exploring effective teaching methods to investigating learners'individual differences. It is agreed that anxiety is one of the most important affective variables.Since 1980s, researchers have made deep investigation on foreign language anxiety. The early researches found a negative correlation between foreign language anxiety and foreign language learning, with Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) as the main instrument, which was designed by Horwitz et al. (1986), which mainly concerned on oral speaking. With the deepening of the investigation, the effects of anxiety on other aspects of foreign language learning have been paid wide attention. At the turn of the century, Saito et al. (1999) developed Foreign Language Reading Anxiety Scale (FLRAS) and stats that foreign language reading anxiety is related but distinguishable from general foreign language anxiety. In addition, Saito et al. holds that different levels of foreign language reading anxiety may be an outcome of different target languages or different native languages. In China, anxiety studies mainly focus on foreign language anxiety, however very few on foreign language reading anxiety. In the limited research on foreign language reading anxiety, secondary vocational school students have been paid scant attention. So it is of great theoretical and pedagogical importance to explore how anxiety affects secondary vocational non-English majors'English reading in China.This study takes 160 sophomores majored in accounting from HeBei Banking School as subjects. FLCAS, FLRAS and the reading scores of the English test taken from VCEE (2008) are used as instruments to collect quantitative data. This study aims to reveal the English reading anxiety of the participants and to investigate its sources and effects on English reading achievement. Meanwhile the relationship between foreign language anxiety and foreign language reading anxiety in EFL context is also expounded. The collected data are analyzed with SPSS 17.0 using descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation analysis and independent-sample T test.The analysis of the data confirms related but distinct relationship between foreign language anxiety and foreign language reading anxiety (Saito et al 1999) in EFL context. The subjects experience higher anxiety in English learning and reading compared with college or university students. English reading anxiety has a negative correlation with reading achievement; in addition, there are significant differences between high-anxiety and low-anxiety groups in terms of English reading achievement. The findings suggest that the subjects'confidence, satisfaction, as well as interest in English reading may be the main sources of English reading anxiety. Besides these emotional factors, unfamiliar culture background and unfamiliar script and writing systems can also make the subjects feel nervous or anxious and thereby affect their English reading performance.Based on the results of this study, the research puts forward insightful implications for secondary vocational school EFL teaching on how to reduce students'English reading anxiety and improve their English reading efficiency. Teachers should help students be aware of anxiety and strive to create relaxed and low-anxiety classroom atmosphere. Also in the English classroom the infiltration of cultural knowledge can develop students'cross-culture awareness, enhance their culture deposit and broaden their view. Finally, more practices in secondary vocational English teaching are recommended to help students be familiar and master words and grammar which can lay a solid foundation for their effective reading.