A Study On The Correlation Between English Reading Anxiety And Reading Performance Of Vocational College Students In Different Task Difficulties

Based on Humanistic Psychology and Krashen's Affective Filtering Hypothesis,this study is conducted to find out the current state of vocational college students' English reading anxiety and explore the relationship between reading anxiety and reading performance in different reading task difficulties.Data is collected from the ERAS,semi-structured interview and two final exam reading tasks at different difficulty levels.Five freshman classes were selected from a vocational college in Zhejiang province.This study aims to answer the following questions: 1)What are the current state and contributing factors of vocational college students' English reading anxiety? 2)Are there any differences in reading achievements with different reading anxiety levels in high-difficulty reading task? 3)Are there any differences in reading achievements with different reading anxiety levels in low-difficulty reading task?The major findings include:(1)Vocational college students generally suffered intermediate level of reading anxiety.Among the four levels,the reading detail anxiety was the highest(3.56),reaching a high level of anxiety;reading comprehension anxiety and reading self-confidence anxiety were 3.35 and 3.21 respectively,both reaching a moderate level of anxiety;reading learning difficulties were relatively low(2.95),but also reaching a moderate level of anxiety.(2)It identified four sources of English reading anxiety: excessive attention to reading details,worrying about comprehension,unfamiliar cultural background and lack of reading confidence.(3)In high-difficulty reading task,correlation analysis indicated a significant negative correlation between English reading anxiety and reading performance.However,when the subjects reached above moderate level of anxiety,the one-way analysis of variance(ANOVA)result indicated that there were no differences in English reading performance between high and middle English reading anxiety students.In low-difficulty reading task,correlation analysis showed no significant correlation between English reading anxiety and reading performance.Based on the results of the study,it provided some pedagogical implications to vocational college teaching:(1)group reading and scaffold reading;(2)cultural backgroundteaching before reading.