An Empirical Study On Foreign Language Reading Anxiety Among Non-English Majors In SUST

Reading plays a vital role in language learning. Many factors are believed to influence reading efficiency. Among them, affect is considered to be a significant factor. Anxiety is an important aspect of affective variables.This article is an empirical research on reading anxiety of non-English majors in Shandong University of Science and Technology. The author makes a study on English reading anxiety of 80 non-English majors from Shandong University of Science and Technology by employing quantitative and qualitative research methods. The results from researches in this study are shown as follows:non-English majors commonly experience English reading anxiety. All non-English majors indeed are experiencing English reading anxiety to different degrees, significant differences have been found in terms of gender and years of English learning, males experience higher anxiety than females, and students who learned English shorter have higher anxiety. The levels of English reading anxiety of non-English majors are influenced by students'personal variables such as their perceptions of the difficulty of English reading and their self-perceived English reading ability. The qualitative research further confirms the findings of the quantitative research. Additionally, it has identified several potential sources which elicit reading anxiety of non-English majors:unfamiliar words, unfamiliar text types and text contents, slow reading speed, lack of efficient strategies and unclear reading goals.In light of the results of the study mentioned above, the author has advanced some feasible suggestions which can help non-English majors alleviate their English reading anxiety and improve their English reading proficiency. As for teachers, they should assist students to treat their reading anxiety correctly, create a low-anxiety reading classroom environment, and train reading strategies effectively. Simultaneously, teachers should also provide students with as many reading materials as possible. The materials should be appropriate to students'levels of study. This can help students boost their English reading confidence. As for students, they should set appropriate, practical reading goal and plan, and improve their cross-culture awareness so as to reduce their English reading anxiety and improve their English reading proficiency. Finally, the author points out the limitations of the study and puts forward some recommendations for future research in this area.