Research On The English Reading Of Middle School Seniors Based On Krashen’s Affective Filter Hypothesis

Reading plays an important role in English learning for middle school students. Thecurrent study attempts to analyze the influence of affective factors on readingcomprehension. Based on relevant researches on Affective Filter Hypothesis conductedby scholars at home and abroad, this research aims to investigate the students’ affectiveproblems in English reading process, which mainly focuses on reading motivation,anxiety and self-confidence in reading.49students are randomly selected from a middle school in China. English readingtest questions extracted from the test paper of College Entrance Examination of Jiangxiprovince in2011and three questionnaires are employed in the study. All data areanalyzed by SPSS17.0.The findings of the research are as follows:(1) As far as reading motivation is concerned, nearly all the subjects are reluctant toface reading challenge, while most students’ self-efficacy in reading is not satisfactory.Furthermore, getting high scores in tests is also the students’ main motive for reading.Meanwhile, the parents are more concerned about children’s English performance thanthe students themselves. Although the students have the awareness of finishing readingassignments on time, not all of them can do so each time. At last, vocabulary andintricate relationship among the characters in English passages are the chief barriers inreading.(2) As for the students’ reading self-confidence, no one has very strongself-confidence in English reading.37%of the subjects are confident in doing Englishcomprehension test. Almost two thirds of them think that their reading ability ismediocre. But only4%of them have a sense of inferiority in English reading.(3) Students’ reading anxiety is mainly attributed to their apprehension about readingitself, besides, unfamiliar target culture, unfamiliar fields and scientific terms alsoaccount for their anxiety.(4) Students’ English reading achievements and affective filter are in the state ofco-variation. The correlation between reading performance and reading motivation ismore evidently reflected than the correlation between reading achievements andself-confidence. In other words, reading motivation has greater influence on reading performance than self-confidence does. What’s more, the correlation between readinganxiety and reading performance is in the shape of a reversed "U".Based on the above findings, this dissertation offers some implications andsuggestions to both teachers and students.Firstly, English teachers should give more encouragement to the students so as tomake them fully realize the importance of English reading and help dispel their anxietyabout reading. Next, the background information and the culture of English speakingcountries should be instructed to the students. Furthermore, English reading materials ofvarious subjects should be selected in order to broaden students knowledge in differentfields. At last, teachers should also provide some effective strategies to improvestudents’ reading skill.Moreover, the author also offers some recommendations for students. For one thing,students should be aware of their affective factors that prevent them from achievinggood results in English reading. For another, students could relieve their pressure bykeeping a dairy. They should form the habit of reading English by selecting appropriatereading materials.