A Study On The Effects Of English Reading Anxiety On Reading Achievement Of Junior High School Students

Reading skill is a basic language skill in English learning.And reading has occupied a decisive position in almost every English exam.Therefore,developing a good competence in reading in English as a foreign language is of great significance for subsequent academic success.Besides cognitive factors,researchers have heightened the need for valuing students' emotional factors such as anxiety.Thus,anxiety is increasingly recognized as a serious concern.A great deal of research has outlined a critical role for reading anxiety by showing that students' anxiety generated in reading process can directly impact on reading achievement.And a large and growing body of literature has investigated the relation between reading anxiety and students' reading achievement.However,much uncertainty still exists.And few studies have focused on the junior high school students.So this study mainly sought to address these research gaps by investigating the effects of English reading anxiety on reading achievement of junior high school students,the main sources of junior high school students'reading anxiety and the differences based on the variable of gender so that suggestions can be given on how to reduce students'reading anxiety,cultivate students' good reading habits and then improve their reading achievement.The research attempted to deal with the following questions:1.Do junior high school students experience foreign language reading anxiety?If they do,what are the main sources of junior high school students' reading anxiety?2.What is the relationship between FL reading anxiety and reading achievement?3.Are there any differences of students' English reading achievement and reading anxiety state with regard to variable of gender?The participants comprised 114 eighth grade students,among whom 61 were male and 53 were female.The participants took a reading proficiency test which was designed by the City Board of Education and a reading anxiety scale,designed by Saito(1999).Both the test paper and scale had good reliability and validity.And after this,an interview was conducted to deeply investigate of students'reading anxiety and make a supplement for the results of quantitative research.The collected data were subjected to a set of statistical analyses by using SPSS(17.0),including descriptive analysis,frequency statistics and independent samples t-test.Analyses of the survey data yielded the following results:1.Junior high school students experienced reading anxiety quite commonly and the main sources were lack of confidence,students' incorrect reading habits and methods and fear of difficulty during reading.2.There was a negative relationship between junior high school student' reading anxiety and reading achievement.To put it another way,the students who experienced higher degree of foreign language reading anxiety tended to gain lower reading achievement.Instead,students who experienced lower degree of foreign language reading anxiety tended to gain higher reading achievement.But a certain level of reading anxiety might promote some students' learning to some extent.3.There was a significant difference in reading achievement based on gender difference.However,no significant difference was found in reading anxiety between male students and female students.Taken together,the results which match those observed in earlier studies have further confirmed and supported the association between junior high school students' English reading anxiety and their achievement.Hence,teachers should keep a very close eye on students' anxiety and help them overcome their anxiety in reading.