A Study On English Reading Anxiety Of Non-English Majors

Reading always takes the important part in language learning. In foreign language learning, numerous learner variables are generally said to influence the success or failure of language learning. Among these, foreign language anxiety has often been cited as one of the most important affective variables. The past two decades has witnessed a virtual explosion of research into the topic of foreign language anxiety. In the past, numerous research studies have not a standard method to testify the reading anxiety and the result is different. It is not universal. People often use Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale which proposed and developed by Horwitz(1986). However, the most content of it concerns oral anxiety. So it can't explain foreign reading anxiety well and it is not targeted. At the turn of the century, attempts have been made to examine foreign reading anxiety, Saito, Horwitz and Garza (1999) had designed the Foreign Language Reading Anxiety Scale (FLRAS) .Nowadays, a lot of research on foreign language reading anxiety is based on this scale, or be amended or supplemented. People use it more widely because it has high internal reliability and validity for the study of foreign language reading anxiety. In fact, many scholars, including Saito, who believe that listening, speaking and writing ability is based on the reading. However, anxiety and emotional factors as an important obstacle exist to stop English improvement. In China, foreign language reading anxiety research often focuses on high school students or English-major college students. It is very few on non-English majors. I believe that the understanding of non-English majors reading anxiety for improving the English teaching situation is important. For the above reasons, I will choose the Non-English Majors in Harbin College to take qualitative and quantitative research. The purpose of this study is to understand non-English Undergraduate Student Anxiety and explained the reasons .The writer also analyzes the causes and to make some comments and suggestions. This study not only has the theoretical value but also has important practical significance on English teaching in the college. Based on Krashen's input hypothesis and the affective filter hypothesis, also information processing theory, the author made a study on English reading anxiety of 198 non-English majors from Harbin College by employing quantitative and qualitative research methods. A total of 198 non-English-major students participated in the study. In this study, writer use questionnaire and personal interviews with a combination of methods. The results of the questionnaire carefully selected effective, and the data of questionnaires will enter into computer by help of SPSS11.0.The results from quantitative research in this study are shown as follows: non-English majors actually experienced varying degrees of foreign language reading anxiety in reading comprehension process. When the subjects have enough confidence or are interested in reading the material itself, the lower their reading anxiety. We can know that non-English major undergraduate students interested in English reading and English reading anxiety has a significant negative correlation between them. In terms of gender and different variables in students, there was not significant difference. In other words, gender and personality have not significant correlation on English reading anxiety among non-English majors. The author used Pearson correlation coefficient to analyze the specific relevance on individual variables. The author find that self-perceived difficulty of English has a significant positive effect on reading anxiety. Meanwhile, this study found that self-perceived English reading ability has a significant negative effect on reading anxiety and vice versa. In addition, qualitative research also shows the five causes of non-English major students They are unfamiliar new words, unfamiliar contents of the text type and the types, limited reading time and reading speed, reading strategies, and culture shock.In light of the results of the study mentioned above, the author has advanced some feasible suggestions which can help non-English majors alleviate their English reading anxiety and improve their English reading proficiency. As for teachers, they should assist students to treat their reading anxiety correctly, create a low-anxiety reading classroom environment, and train reading strategies effectively. Simultaneously, teachers should also provide students with as many reading materials as possible. The materials should be appropriate to students' levels of study. This can help students boost their English reading confidence. As for students, they should enlarge their vocabulary and reading knowledge range and improve their cross-culture awareness so as to reduce their English reading anxiety and improve their English reading proficiency. Finally, the author points out the limitations of the study and puts forward some recommendations for future research in this area...