论文总字数：36370字

摘 要

语言学习在很大程度上会受到学习者情感因素的影响。情感教育是教育过程的一部分，而且与孩子的情感，态度， 信仰，社会发展联系在一起，也与孩子的自尊联系在一起。焦虑是情感因素中的关键一项。 许多研究表明， 外语阅读焦虑和学习过程之间有紧密的联系。 在此文章中笔者研究英语阅读焦虑和英语高考成绩的关系，并通过对103位高中毕业生做调查问卷得来的数据进行分析，发现焦虑对成绩有消极的影响。鉴于焦虑对成绩的影响，英语老师在教学过程中应该更加注意学生的情感，培养他们学习的兴趣， 充分发挥评价的积极作用，以此来降低学生的焦虑，只有这样才能增加学生在考试中的自信息并且取得好的成绩。

关键词：阅读焦虑；高考；情感因素

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 2

3. Survey Research 3

3.1 Questions 3

3.2 Subjects 3

3.3 Instruments 3

3.4 Data collection 4

3.5 Results 4

4. Reasons of English Reading Anxiety 5

5. Englightments and Suggestions on English Teaching 7

5.1 Help students build up self-confidence, and lower affective filter. 7

5.2 Strengthen cross-culture education. 8

5.3 Strengthen cooperative learning to reduce English reading anxiety. 9

5.4 Employ formative assessment in teaching 10

6. Conclusion 11

Works Cited 13

Appendix 1 15

Appendix 2........................................................................................................ 16

1. Introduction

In view of the importance of English reading in English study and students’ social life, English education in China has been giving priority to the development of students’ comprehension ability. However, decades of English teaching has not solved the problems encountered in English reading that why mastering many reading strategies still can not guarantee good marks in English reading tests. Plenty of researches have also been done on English reading from different points in order to find an approach to this problem. Some researchers try to find causes from the point of students’ vocabulary and grammar which help us learn the importance of these two factors in English reading. Nevertheless, this kind of research ignores the psychological and cognitive process of English reading. Learners’ affectivity proves to be the most potential and unavoidable variable affecting the language learning output. The New English Curriculum follows this trend and emphasizes “students’ affection and the attitude” are the key factors in the language learning (Experimental, Full Time Compulsory Education General Senior Middle School English Curriculum Standard, 2011).

Recently, researchers come to attach importance to affective functions (such as motivation, attitude, and language anxiety) in foreign language learning (Dai, 47-49; Liu 4-7). Anxiety, becomes the main kind of attractive variable investigated since 1940s, and is “the subjective feeling of tension, apprehension, nervousness, and worry associated with an arousal of the autonomic nervous system” (Spielberger 59). Scovel(182) felt that anxiety is a subject worthy of investigation.

Some researchers put forward that there are two kinds of anxiety: facilitating anxiety, and debilitating anxiety. Facilitating anxiety makes students focus on study which is useful for language learning, but debilitating anxiety hampers language learning directly or indirectly which is useless for language learning.

Although several studies related to foreign language reading anxiety conducted in western countries and Taiwan, very few, if any have been found in Mainland China. In addition, all the available researches on reading anxiety are cross-sectional in nature; no longitudinal studies have been conducted in the world. Furthermore, because foreign language anxiety varies according to the target language (Satio, Horwitz and Gatza 202-218), it is of great theoretical and pedagogical interest to understand how anxiety reactions in reading affect learners of English as a foreign language in China, therefore, the main purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between high school students’ reading anxiety and their English achievements in college entrance examination. Meanwhile, dynamic changes in reading anxiety over one year will also be examined.

2. Literature Review

“Not only is it intuitive to many people that anxiety negatively influences language learning, but it is logical because anxiety has been found to interfere with many types of learning and has been one of the most highly examined variables in all of psychology and education”(Horwitz 112-126). However, up to now, no definition is so satisfactory and no one can contest. Researchers’ conception of anxiety varies from one perspective to another.

Though reading anxiety has been an inevitable member in general foreign language anxiety, it diverges from general foreign anxiety. Former is more detailed, specific, and instructive in English language education, and thus it is a new trend of study pinpointed in language research field. This attracts our attention to the method and instruments applied in English reading anxiety field. Satio, Horwitz amp; Garza (202-218) made the earliest and pioneering contribution to anxiety research on specific-skill reading. They designed the foreign language reading anxiety scale (FLRAS), a further development of foreign language classroom anxiety scale (FLCAS), by which linguists and educators can measure and check levels of anxiety provoked under different situation. In their research, unfamiliar culture and unfamiliar scripts and writing system are aspects that can trigger anxiety. Up to now, FLRAS have been proved to be a more authoritative and widespread instrument. Sellars (519) also found that students with higher levels of FLCA, tend to report higher levels of reading anxiety.

Although anxiety on writing and speaking attract a lot of attention, FLRA in China has not obtained much attention in English education. Many Chinese researchers like Chen (5-10) amp; Shi and Liu (17-19) amp; He (183-184), start to search the relationship between reading anxiety and reading performance, and survey the state of anxiety of subjects at different stages of development. In this paper, the writer studies the effect of anxiety in English reading on English scores of Enrollment into College.

3. Survey Research

3.1 Questions

In this essay, the writer mainly explores the relationship between English reading anxiety and English achievements. Specific questions as follows:

Firstly, whether there is a significant correlation between foreign language anxiety and English scores.

Secondly, what is the relationship between foreign language anxiety and English scores?

3.2 Subjects

The participants are 103 high school graduates from Zheng Liangmei High School. All participants had learned English as a compulsory subject in senior high school education. All of them attend the same kind of class. In the classroom, language instructors use both English and Chinese to address; outside the classroom, nearly all of them had few opportunities to communicate with native speakers, or have direct contact with the culture of English language. Moreover, none of them is language disabilities.

3.3 Instruments

A questionnaire survey was used in this study, a modified FLRAS. The FLRAS was specifically designed by Satio et al. (202-218) to measure anxiety related to foreign language reading. It contains 20 items, each of which is to be answered in a 5-point Likert scale: (A) strongly agree; (B) agree; (C) neither agree nor disagree; (D) disagree; (E) strongly disagree. Examinees choose A “ strongly agree ” can get 5 points, while examinees choose B “agree”, C “ neither agree nor disagree, D “ disagree”, E “ strongly disagree” will get 4, 3, 2, 1 points respectively. And each item should be given one choice. At last, all examinees’ scores will be summed up, and the theoretical range of the FLRAS scale is from 20 to 100. The higher the scores, the more anxious the students are. However, some items like 12-14, and 18 are scored reversely, so the point should be added oppositely. In other words, A “strongly agree” stands for 1 point, and next just follows. In order to find the relationship between RA and English achievements, students’ scores of college entrance examination in 2012 was used as achievement measurement.

3.4 Data collection

Quantitative data were collected from questionnaires and National Matriculation English Test. After two days of investigation, 103 questionnaires were gathered timely. But 95 questionnaires were taken as final valid ones for their complement.

3.5 Results

3.51 Descriptive statistics of FLRA scores

The examinees’ anxiety can be seen in different choices on the 20 items in FLRAS. By the process of computer, the writer ranks the mean score on each item (table 1) in order to see the main anxiety resources.

Table1:

To further refine the relationship between foreign language anxiety and English scores, the writer divides the foreign language reading anxiety into three categories: FLRA1(item 6, 7, 8, 11), general reading anxiety is caused by new vocabulary and grammar; FLRA2(item 1, 3, 4, 5, 15, 17) is a kind of reading anxiety, aroused by learners’ lack of confidence and other emotional factors; FLRA3(item 2, 10, 19, 20) is another anxiety due to unfamiliar typefaces and cultural differences.

The average score of 20 items of testers in FLRAS is 3.34. From the table, it can be seen the first anxiety comes from item 1 “When I am not sure whether I can understand what I am reading, I fell worried”. Moreover, students involved do have experienced high level of RA. And majority of subjects have high level of RA especially in the ten items: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 11, 13, 18, 19, and 20.

3.52 Descriptive statistics of 20 items in FLRAS

When the examinees finished the questionnaires, scores of their real state of RA come into air. Theoretically, their scores range from 20--100. Among 95 students, their scores range from 46--87. Range reaches as big as 41. The mean of the scores is 66.86. From the table below, we can see most students’ scores are above the mean. It suggests that most students are experiencing high reading anxiety. And it vividly shows in table2 that the higher the scores, the more anxious the students become.

Table2

4. Reasons of English Reading Anxiety

Firstly, reading anxiety has much to do with students" pressure from schools and themselves. College entrance examination is the best opportunity for them to change their fate, and reading comprehension in English examination in the college entrance exam accounts for more than 40 points. And, cloze, essay writing and other questions are also related to reading ability. In a word, students’ English scores are decided by their reading ability. So, reading comprehension is very important, we should do whatever we can do to improve comprehension ability.

Secondly, the language performances of high school students are filled with uncertainties. Due to some reasons, for example, they have few opportunities to the knowledge of English, read limited English materials and differ from each other in learning methods. Though some of them have made many efforts in learning, English language performance is still poor. Under this circumstance, they are likely to doubt their ability in learning English and to weaken self-confidence. In addition, in reading, especially in English exam, students may encounter many new words and expressions which will make them feel nervous. Furthermore, if they can not have a general understanding of the reading material in a limited time-span, it is no doubt that the anxiety increases sharply.

Thirdly, the teaching methodology in China is also another anxiety resource in language learning. The popular teaching methodology in China is a duck-stuffing and teacher-centered one. Under the pressure of college entrance examination indicators, teaching is oriented toward college entrance examination questions. Although, this teaching model is goal-oriented, and it can get good results in short term, it ignores the study of English culture and background in the whole teaching process. Consequently, students become less and less interested in learning English and produce aversion to learn English.

Finally, low self-evaluation and the sense of competition is also a very important reason. Bailey put it, when the learner compare himself with others or the ideal self-image, this sense of competition is likely to cause anxiety (Bailey 69). Students with low self-evaluation are always worried about how classmates see themselves, foe fear of being negatively evaluated by classmates and teachers. However, it is more likely to cause anxiety, if a student think himself has low language ability. In addition, social anxiety, performance anxiety, interview anxiety, stage anxiety, caused by the requirements to speak or perform in front of others will all contribute to language learning anxiety.

5. Enlightens and Suggestions on English Teaching

Reading comprehension constitutes the largest proportion of CEE, while the answer effects of listening, multiple choice, cloze, reading and expression, writing are directly or indirectly dependent on reading ability. Such as, cloze test, also called missing word reading, if students can not read the passage effectively, they will not be able to correctly understand the missing words in place. To some extent, they will be anxious. Therefore, the improvement of English reading ability in English learning plays a vital role. Reading teaching should pay more attention to many details, and we should change traditional teaching methods. The design of reading comprehension in college entrance examination focuses on deep understanding. There is a certain degree of difficulty and discrimination. The increasing amount of reading in the paper means that the reading speed is becoming faster. To continue to increase the amount of reading, and improve reading speed, is still the reform tendency of CEE. Likewise, both of them will increase students’ anxiety in test. To improve the ability in reading and understanding is not easy. So, students need to take a hard work and master some skills to achieve their goals. In daily teaching, the teachers should carry out the instruction of reading methods and the training of reading skills, so as to cultivate the students" ability in reading and understanding.

5.1 Help students build up self-confidence, and lower affective filter

Affective Filter Hypothesis (Krash 89) believes that emotional factors directly affect second language acquisition. The strength of emotion is closely bound up with the subjective initiative or depression state. Students who have strong initiative, self-confidence and less anxiety will have light affective filter and accept a large amount of information. So, teachers should focus on the establishment of students’ self-confidence, thereby reducing anxiety.

According to Maslow’s (126) hierarchy of needs, security, belonging, self-esteem needs are basic human needs. Middle school students are in a period of rapid development in psychology and self-awareness, focusing on the evaluation of others, eager to get respect and admiration. In China, spoon-feeding education model often overlooks individual differences between students receptivity, leading to some students’ self-denial. To avoid the above results, it should start with the following three aspects.

First, teachers should recognize that each student is unique and be aware of students’ advantages and strengths. Teachers should pay particular attention to those students who have strong anxiety and are weak at language learning. Second, establish a good relationship between teachers and students and help to build students’ self-confidence. Teachers, as a guider in English learning process, plays a vital role in the process. So, they should create an equal, harmonious, happy learning environment in the classroom. In addition, teachers should strengthen ties with students, and narrow the psychological distance between each other. Third, the theory that only the valid input can help students requires teachers to teach with a gradient of difficulty. Too simple or too hard is not conducive to students’ learning. Certain degree of difficulty in teaching can stimulate students’ interest in learning, enhance their intrinsic motivation to learn and reduce anxiety.

Although competition can stimulate students to study harder, overly competitive environment makes them nervous, especially for those students with poor academic performance. They are unable to participate in the class, and feel inferior to others which results in low self-esteem and depression, so that they lose interest in learning English. Therefore, we should give more support and encouragement to students to enhance students’ self-esteem and reduce the intensity of competition in the classroom.

5.2 Strengthen cross-culture education

Cross-culture is completely different from that of yesterday. The influence of multinational corporations, the technological revolution, the information superhighway, and the movement of the private and public sectors towards globalization, contributes to the difference. This development demands a completely new approach to any type of international relations. People have to learn to understand and work with each other, whether it happens in person, over the phone, through the fax or e-mail. No matter what nation or culture you come from, you will need to recognize one important truth you should learn foreign languages and cultures to communicate. They will have a different sense of time, and a different sense of humor. They will have different ways of negotiating, and different perceptions in making a deal. In order to help students live better in the international society, cross-culture education should be attached importance.

The objectives of cross-cultural education:

To help students to develop an understanding of the fact that all people exhibit culturally-conditioned behaviors;

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