A Study On English Reading Anxiety Of Senior Three Students

Under current conditions in our country, reading is the most important way of obtaining English knowledge and accounts for a great proportion in various examinations. It is particularly important to develop students’ reading ability. Emotion and attitude is key to students’ learning and development; English learning anxiety is an important affective factor to affect students’ language efficiency. Relatively high anxiety exists in students’ reading comprehension and influences their reading performance. It is found from classroom observation that the senior three students are more anxious in English reading; therefore, it is crucial to explore the state and causes of reading anxiety.The purpose of the study is to find out the actual situation of the senior three students and its influence upon their reading performance, hoping that it can provide some evidence and suggestions for improving the later reading teaching through the survey and analysis.The subject of the study is114senior three students in Jiang’an Middle School of Sichuan. Data for the empirical study were mainly collected by using tests, and questionnaires. Questionnaires consist of three parts, including individual background information, Foreign Language Reading Anxiety Scale (FLRAS) by Saito et al. and Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) by Horwitz et al.. Individual background information mainly includes three parts. One is the subjects’ English reading ability (based on last semester’s final exam reading comprehension scores); second it is subjects’ gender; and last it is the degree of subjects’ expectations of the university entrance exam. The tests include a casual in-class reading test and a reading test in the mid-term exam. The data obtained are processed by Statistical Package for Social Sciences SPSS13.0. The data and information from the research indicate as follows:First, reading anxiety is common among senior three students and has a certain effect on their English reading comprehension scores. Furthermore, according to the different groups, there is a mild or moderate negative correlation between reading anxiety and reading comprehension scores;Second, through the different dimensional analysis of subjects, the author finds that subjects’ expectations of the university entrance exam has the greatest impact on the subjects’ English reading anxiety. The second is their English reading ability, and the last is their gender. The author also further analyzes the questionnaire results of the reading anxiety scale and discusses the reasons of senior three students’ English reading anxiety.Finally, based on the conclusion, the author puts forward some opinions and suggestions on how to improve senior three students’ English reading anxiety.