A Correlative Study On The Junior High School Students' Tolerance Of Ambiguity And The Use Of Reading Strategies

Tolerance of ambiguity,was first proposed by American psychologist Frenkel Brunswik in 1948 and was introduced into the field of second language learning later,which has always attracted the attention of scholars.As an important means for humans to obtain information,reading plays a very important role in English learning and is also difficult for learners.With the development of researches,scholars have found that tolerance of ambiguity is closely related with second language learning,especially with its reading.Based on the previous researches,the author conducts the correlation between the junior high school students' tolerance of ambiguity and reading strategies use,aiming to provide effective suggestions for improving the teaching of junior high school English reading.On the theoretical basis of the zone of the proximal development and affective filter hypothesis,the study adopts methods of questionnaires and interviews,surveying 342 junior high school students from a key middle school in Lu'an City,Anhui Province.SPSS 19.0 is used to analyze the results of the questionnaires and interviews,and explore junior high school students' tolerance of ambiguity,the use of English reading strategies and the correlation between them.This research mainly explores the following questions:(1)What is the current level of junior high school students' tolerance of ambiguity?(2)What is the current situation of English reading strategies used by junior high school students? What are the differences between the two groups of high and low students' tolerance of ambiguity in their English reading strategies use?(3)Does there exist a correlation between junior high school students' tolerance of ambiguity and English reading strategy use? If there exists,what kind correlation exists between them?The findings of the study are as follows:(1)Junior high school students are in the moderate degree of tolerance ofambiguity on the whole,that is to say,most students have a moderate degree of tolerance of ambiguity in English learning.(2)The overall frequency of English reading strategies used by junior high school students is at the medium level.In the separate dimensions of English reading strategies,the students' use of English reading strategies from high to low frequencies are compensation strategies,cognitive strategies,meta-cognitive strategies,memory strategies,affective strategies,and social strategies.Students with high tolerance of ambiguity are more likely to use English reading strategies than those with low tolerance of ambiguity in the overall dimension and separate ones.There exists a significant differences between students' use of English reading strategies with high and low tolerance of ambiguity in the overall dimension and separate ones.(3)There is a significantly positive correlation between junior high school students' tolerance of ambiguity and English reading strategies use on the whole.There also exists positive correlation between the use of English reading strategies in the separate dimensions and tolerance of ambiguity.According to the above results,this study provides some teaching suggestions from the perspective of improving students' tolerance of ambiguity and strengthening the training of their English reading strategies: enhancing teachers and students' tolerance of ambiguity awareness,alleviating students' anxiety caused by low tolerance of ambiguity,adjusting teaching models,strengthening the training of the students' affective and social strategies and guiding them to use English reading strategies reasonably.