An Action Research On English Reading Anxiety Of Non-english Majors In Vocational College

Reading is considered world widely as a component of foreign language learning and performance. However, many factors influence the whole process of reading. Reading anxiety as one of affective factors influences reading performance deeply. With the development of studies on the relationship between foreign language anxiety and specific aspects of foreign language learning, reading is also proved to be closely related to anxiety level. Just as Saito et al pointed out, foreign language reading anxiety “diverges in an important way from general foreign language learning anxiety”(Saito, Garza & Horwitz, 1999). Saito et al(1999) also introduced a special instrument, Foreign Language Reading Anxiety Scale(FLRAS), to measure levels of foreign language reading anxiety, which has not been put into wide use or test. By adopting the FLRAS, the present study attempts to explore the situation of reading anxiety among Non-English majors in Ding Xi Teachers College, and to examine the relationship between foreign language reading anxiety and reading achievements, with the ultimate purpose to find out the possible sources of reading anxiety thus to provide practical advice for our English teachers dealing with reading teaching tasks by means of action research.This thesis consists of six chapters. The first chapter demonstrates the background of the current research, the significance and the purpose of the current study; the second chapter introduces a review of the related studies, on both foreign language anxiety and foreign language reading anxiety at home and abroad; The third chapter presents the major theories as the theoretical foundation for the present study, which are Krashen's Input hypothesis and his effective filter hypothesis, Tobias three-stage model for foreign language anxiety as well as the instrumentalism; Chapter four presents the methodology of this study, including introduction of research questions, subjects, three instruments, and researching procedures. Chapter five introduces the detailed researching process including data collection and results of analyses. The last chapter draws a conclusion based on the three research questions, including the major findings and pedagogical implications.In this thesis, the author studied the vocational students' reading anxiety by using the method of action research, which combined survey research with experimental research. The whole process took 8 weeks. At the present study, 156 freshmen non-English majors in Vocational College as the subjects and adopts FLRAS, reading tests scores, teachers' logs and students' diaries as its instruments and 12 students were selected to take part in an interview, aims to answer three research questions: 1) Do non-English majors in Vocational College experience serious English reading anxiety? If so, what are the causes of it? 2) Is there a correlation between reading anxiety and the reading achievements among non-English majors in Vocational College? 3) What measures are helpful in reducing students' reading anxiety and improving their reading achievements? It is found that 1) English majors do experience anxiety when they are confronted with English reading tasks. After the interview and classified the contents of FLRAS, the potential reasons of reading anxiety consist of the limitation of background information, vocabulary, grammar and students' confidence. 2) Reading anxiety level is significantly correlated with reading performance among Non-English majors(correlation coefficient =-.150). Non-English majors perform terribly if they feel anxious when reading English materials. 3) Some of teaching methods were used in the teaching progress. Through analyze the teachers' plan, logs and students' diaries, the students' reading anxiety level have been reduced and their reading ability have been improved in the experiment class.