A Study On The Influence Of Foreign Language Reading Anxiety And Reading Strategy On Reading Comprehension Among High School Students

It is generally recognized that English reading has been accounting for an increasingly larger proportion in the college entrance examination over the years.Therefore,it is natural that more attention has been given to the study of the influence on English reading.Nevertheless,among the affective factors that influence students’ performance of English competence,the last thing that should not be neglected is the issues of affective factors,which is currently perceived as foreign language reading anxiety.Enough evidence suggests that,anxiety,functioning as one of the negative factors,could significantly influence the performance of reading in terms of accuracy.Apart from the influence from reading anxiety,National English Language Teaching Curriculum for Senior High School also points out reading strategy should play a significant role in passage processing as well as in language teaching.Nevertheless,more attention has been poured on the differences between male students and female students in terms of their performances on reading or,in most cases,when there is relatively little research on the correlation between foreign language reading anxiety and reading comprehension,discussing the impact of reading strategy at the same time.Therefore,based on the Humanistic Psychology of Rogers and the Affective Filtering Hypothesis of Krashen,this thesis is designed to discuss the influence of foreign language reading anxiety and reading strategy on reading comprehension among high school students.Four instruments were adopted in this research,which were,respectively,background information questionnaires,Foreign Language Reading Anxiety Scale(FLRAS),questionnaire on reading strategy and the reading comprehension part of the college entrance examination English papers of Shandong Province in 2020.By eliminating the influence of age,education and language-related factors like Chinese and English proficiency,60 participants were divided into high and low reading comprehension groups according to their performance on reading comprehension so as to address the following questions:(1)What is the relationship between second year senior high school students’ reading comprehension and foreign language reading anxiety? What is the influence of second year senior high school students’ foreign language reading anxiety on their reading comprehension? Which dimensions of FLRA would influence reading comprehension?(2)What is the relationship between second year senior high school students’ reading comprehension and frequency of reading strategy use? What is the influence of second year senior high school students’ frequency of reading strategy use on their reading comprehension? Which dimensions of reading strategy would influence reading comprehension?By controlling the influence of age,education and language-related factors and through the usage of SPSS to conduct the correlation analysis and the independent-sample t test,this study finds that:(1)According to the Pearson correlation results,the reading anxiety score is negatively related to the outcome of the reading tests,which conveys that those with higher level of reading anxiety may indicate worse performance on reading comprehension.After grouping 60 participants into high and low reading comprehension groups,independent-sample t test suggests that there is a significant difference between the performance of difference reading comprehension groups.Among the three dimensions of FLRA,the unfamiliarity with culture and lack of confidence would actually influence the performance of reading comprehension.(2)According to the Pearson correlation results,the frequency of reading strategy use is positively related to the outcome of the reading tests,which conveys that those with higher frequency of reading strategy use may indicate better performance on reading comprehension.After grouping 60 participants into high and low reading comprehension groups,independent-sample t test suggests that there is a significant difference between the performance of difference reading comprehension groups.All the six dimensions of reading strategy would actually influence the performance of reading comprehension.The results of this study not only suggest that reading anxiety and reading strategy could influence the performance of reading,but also raise the awareness of teachers to attach greater importance to the role of nonverbal factors of readers through English reading teaching.In order to improve the English reading skill of middle school students,it is highly vital for teachers,or say,educators to attach greater importance to the emotional aspects of students considering the results of this research,enhancing the teachers teaching methods,teaching concepts,teaching evaluation methods,students’ learning psychology and other factors.