A Research On The Relationship Among The Text Type Foreign Language Reading Anxiety And Reading Efficiency

In recent years, the reading comprehension has become a vital part in foreign language learning. The researches of the factors that would have influence on reading efficiency have become the focus by language researchers and language teaching people.The present study aims to find the relationship among the text type, reading anxiety and reading efficiency. One hundred and thirty-three freshmen from the environmental art design department of Zhixing College of Hubei Universtiy were selected randomly as the subjects. They were firstly asked to finish a self-perception questionnaire on text type and the Foreign Language Reading Anxiety Scale with their background information. After that, they were required to read two types of passages (exposition and argumentation) with a time limit, each text type including two passages. Immediately after the reading comprehension, students were asked to fill the Semantic Differential Scales printed at the end of each passage, which aimed to find out their reading anxiety level toward the two types of passages.Analysis of the data manifests the following results:(1) Most of the non-English majors think the different text types would influence the reading efficiency and exposition is much easier than argumentation; they all have different levels of reading anxiety.(2) Among the text type, reading anxiety and reading efficiency, there are different levels of correlations. Firstly, the text type is related to reading anxiety in a low level. Comparing with the exposition, the students feel more anxious in argumentation. Secondly, there is a moderate negative correlation between reading anxiety and reading efficiency. The more anxious students feel, the less reading efficiency they get. Comparing with the argumentation, the students have a lower reading anxiety level and a higher reading efficiency in exposition. Thirdly, the text type has a low level of correlation with reading efficiency. Students get a higher reading efficiency in exposition than in argumentation. The text type and reading anxiety could predict the reading efficiency.(3) Both the high reading efficiency level and the low reading efficiency level get less reading anxiety in the exposition than that in the argumentation. What’s more, the high reading efficiency level has less reading anxiety in exposition and argumentation than the low reading efficiency level.The findings in this study have significant pedagogical implications on the teaching of English reading. It informed us not only the attitudes of students towards different text types but also the reading anxiety and reading comprehension levels of the two types of passages. Therefore, English teachers should make more efforts to help students reduce their reading anxiety, and consequently improve the reading efficiency.