A Study On Correlations Between English Reading Anxiety,Strategies And Performance Of Mongolian University Students

The respective study on English reading anxiety, English reading strategies and English reading performance is multiple, but the study on the corrections between them is rarely referred to consider and there was no attention paid to the subjects of Mongolian university students. Hulunbuir University is located in the frontier region of our country where the economy and the culture fall behind the other regions and the number of Mongolian students takes up15%the total of students. Mongolian university students receive bilingual Education. Mongolian is their mother tongue. Different individual study experiences, family conditions and attitudes towards English result in their different English level, but for most of them, their English level is quite low. In order to improve the economy and culture in the minority area and maintain the local security, it’s necessary to enhance the Mongolian university students’ learning ability especially at the aspect of English learning.The thesis, on the basis of the theories of Humanistic Psychology and the Affective Filter Hypothesis posed by Krasen, is to find the links between students’reading anxiety, reading strategies and reading achievements, answering questions such as what the conditions and influential factors of the reading anxiety for Mongolian students are, which strategy would be adopted, whether the significant correlation between the reading anxiety and reading strategies exists or not and whether the reading anxiety levels lead the students to select different strategies and how the reading anxiety and reading strategies affect students’ reading performance.The study chose105Mongolian students from Hulunbuir University as the subjects to finish Foreign Language Reading Anxiety Scale (FLRAS), English Reading Strategies Scale (ERSS) and one authentic reading test. After the data were put into the computer, the statistical tool (SPSS16.0) was employed to classify and analyze them. Besides, more information is obtained through questionnaires.The research results confirm that the negative correlations are found between reading anxiety, reading strategies and reading marks as far as Mongolian students are concerned. Different anxiety levels are significant in the way of choosing the English strategies. But there are no significant correlations between students’selection of reading strategies and their reading performance. It reveals that Mongolian students did experience anxiety in answer to English reading, whose influence factors are evaluation of reading, reading interest and self-confidence, difficulties, motivation, habits, methods culture identity and familiarity with English knowledge. Although the choice of reading strategies cannot directly affect reading scores, it would indirectly impact on reading performance and reduce reading anxiety. Thus strengthening the application of reading strategies could efficiently reduce Mongolian students’English reading anxiety.In summary, this thesis has certain limitations, but it may enrich the research results related to the English reading anxiety theory and the reading strategies theory and play an inspiring role in foreign language teaching in the national minority areas. It may be helpful for teachers to grasp the influence factors of reading anxiety for Mongolian students, strengthen reading strategy training and educate the students to use the appropriate reading strategies and methods, so as to reduce the reading anxiety of the Mongolian students and improve the effective teaching methods for the English reading.