A Study Of Correlation Between Affective Factors And Reading Comprehension For Chinese Adult English Learners

With the emergence and development of humanistic psychology in the1960s, more andmore researchers begin to pay attention to the individual differences between foreignlanguage learners, especially the influence of affective factors on foreign language learning.Karashen, a specialist in second language acquisition research, pointed out in his “AffectiveFilter Hypothesis”in1982that the second language acquisition process is also influenced bya range of affective factors and the language “input”can get converted to “intake”onlythrough affective filter. This paper aims to study the interpretation of reading comprehensionby the theory of Cognition-Knowledge Bilingual Double Structures with the existence ofaffective filter and the correlation between reading and the affective factors such asmotivation, confidence and anxiety respectively. The paper also discusses the relationshipsamong affective factors, reading strategies and reading performance. In the1980s, there werealready several related studies on the influences of affective factors on language learning athome and abroad. However, these studies were still in their infancy and confined to theinvestigation of an individual affective factor such as reading anxiety, reading motivation, etc.Stepping into the21st century, some scholars began to conduct comprehensive studies on therelationship between all aspects of affective factors and reading. But these studies still need tobe further broadened and deepened. I interpret the correlation between affective filter andreading comprehension from the perspective of Cognition-Knowledge Bilingual DoubleStructures theory in this paper, which is for the first time in China. Moreover, it is also a newattempt to take the deaf-mute students as objects in this field.This paper adopts the method of random sampling and takes a total of120students fromClass2and Class3, Grade7of No.26Middle School of Nanning, Nanning School for Blindand Deaf-mute, Class1and Class3, Grade7of Railway Middle School of Chengdu, andSpecial Education School of Chengdu as the objects of study. All these students are over12-years-old and have finished the first volume of the seventh grade’s English book Go for It,the PEP edition of curricular standard experimental textbook of compulsory education. Thedata collection is completed by questionnaires and reading tests. Then statistical package forthe social science--SPSS16.0is used to sort and organize data and conduct analytical studieson the data result. Based on the systematic analysis of the study objects’anxiety, motivation,self-confidence, personality, reading strategies and reading performance in English learningrespectively, it is proved that correlation does exist between anxiety, motivation, confidence,personality, reading strategies and reading performance in English learning. Meanwhile, I alsoresearched the relationships among affective factors, reading strategies and readingperformance, and found that there is a triangle relationship model among the three: there arecorrelations between affective factors, reading strategies and reading performance, the lower the affective filter is, the more reading strategies will be applied, and the higher the readinglevel will be.However, the development and change of affection in the reading process are alwayscovert and complicated, so there are still many uncontrollable factors in this study. Forexample, in the process of reading tests, the disunity of the study objects’reading strategiesresults certain deviation in the conclusion. Besides, the study results are more or lessinfluenced by the obstacles in the communication with the deaf-mute students. In spite of thedeficiencies mentioned above, the study results can prompt the educators and researchers toattach great importance to the influence of non-intellectual factors like emotions on readingand help English learners to find the root cause of their obstacles in English reading, and thusto improve their English reading levels. Accordingly, this paper has important reference andguidance significance for reading teaching in China.