An Empirical Research On Science Students' Reading Anxiety In ESP Course In Independent Colleges

Since the 1990 s,with the acceleration of globalization and high demand of talents who are both sophisticated in professional knowledge and skillful in English,ESP course has increasingly attracted great attention in College English Teaching.In 1999 Saito designed Foreign Language Reading Anxiety Scale(FLRAS)to measure students' foreign language reading anxiety(FLRA).He discovered that FLRA universally exists and the most challenging part of learning a foreign language lies in reading.The current researches on ESP reading focus on its correlation with learning strategies.Few researches can be found on the reading anxiety of science students learning ESP course in independent colleges.Thus it is of great necessity to carry out this research.With the theoretical support of the Affective Filter Hypothesis and Humanistic Psychology,the research intends to investigate the following three questions: 1)What is the state of foreign language reading anxiety of science students learning ESP course in independent colleges? 2)What are the effects of gender and English proficiency on reading anxiety of science students learning ESP course in independent colleges? 3)What are the sources of foreign language reading anxiety of science students learning ESP course in independent colleges? In order to carry out the research,the present researcher randomly chooses 241 sophomore students from seven majors including network engineering,software engineering,material forming and control engineering,electrical engineering and automation,civil engineering,computer science,and vehicle engineering in Science and Technology Institute of Nanchang University.First,questionnaire method is adopted.The questionnaire includes a survey about the subjects' basic information including name,gender,age,major,how many years has he/she learned English so far and CET-4 scores;and an ESP Reading Anxiety Scale adapted from Saito's authoritative instrument FLRAS(1999)to measure students' reading anxiety exclusively in ESP course.Through examination its reliability coefficient is.845,which indicates that the questionnaire is highly reliable.The data collected is subsequently analyzed by employing statistical analysis software SPSS 22.0.Second,interview method is applied.Among the subjects who finish the questionnaire,24 students are selected according to the principle of maximum variation sampling to do a person-to-person interview.Inductive reasoning is used to analyze the contents of the interview,the results of which provide further statistical support for the previous questionnaire.The major findings of this research are listed as follows:First,the research shows that 28.2% of the students are at a low level of reading anxiety,66.8% experience a moderate level of reading anxiety,and 4.98% suffer from a high level of anxiety.This implies that all the participants are at different level of reading anxiety and the majority of students are at the moderate level of reading anxiety.Second,the researcher applies the statistical method ANOVA to analyze the correlation between reading anxiety and gender as well as reading anxiety and English proficiency.Although the test results are statistically insignificant,there is still a possibility that male students' reading anxiety rise with their CET-4 scores while the female students' reading anxiety doesn't follow any trend.In female groups,the group whose CET-4 score is at the highest level and the group whose CET-4 score is below 318 present a high level of reading anxiety.The statistical analysis also shows a tendency that the difference in reading anxiety between these two groups(those with the highest English proficiency and those with the lowest English proficiency,those with the moderate English proficiency and those with the lowest English proficiency)is significant.Third,through the individual analysis of the 20 items in the scale eight sources of reading anxiety have been found.They are the negative academic attitude towards ESP reading,lack of interest in ESP reading,deficiency of confidence in ESP reading,improper selection of an ESP coursebook,poor ESP vocabulary,low level of tolerance of ambiguity,limited EGP vocabulary and poor grammar.Accordingly,eight effective ways have been found to relieve their reading anxiety.Firstly,students should set the right attitude toward ESP reading.Secondly,their interest should be aroused.Thirdly,teachers should help to build up students' confidence.Fourthly,teachers should be careful to select ESP reading coursebook.Fifthly,teachers should assist students to master ESP vocabulary.Sixthly,students should be trained to have a high level of tolerance of ambiguity.Seventhly,teachers should help students to enrich their EGP vocabulary.Lastly,students' grammatical skills should be enhanced.Four,the analysis of similarities and differences in survey results between the present research and previous studies shows that the reading anxiety of Chinese students is higher than that of American students but it is gradually declining on the whole.It also indicates that in early studies the correlation between reading anxiety and gender and the correlation between reading anxiety and English proficiency tended to be strongly significant but in the later studies an increasing number of scholars have demonstrated there is no significance in the correlation between reading anxiety and gender.Although the correlation between reading anxiety and English proficiency is still significant,it becomes slightly significant due to the fact that the reading anxiety of Chinese students is declining on the whole.