The Influence Of Foreign Language Reading Anxiety And Working Memory On Chinese EFL Learners’ Reading Comprehension

In recent years,on the question of what factors affect foreign language reading comprehension,cognition and emotion have been the two main schools on this issue.Scholars considering from the cognitive perspective mainly focus on the connection between working memory and foreign language reading comprehension,while scholars considering from the emotional perspective mainly explore the connection between anxiety or foreign language reading anxiety and foreign language reading comprehension.Few studies have considered the effects of working memory and foreign language reading anxiety at the same time,and have explored whether there would exist the interaction effect on foreign language reading comprehension.In addition,few studies have further clarified these influences,that is,their influences on different types of after-reading questions.This research used the Construction-Integration theory,the experimental results about the influence of working memory on foreign language reading comprehension,and the experimental results concerning the influence of foreign language reading anxiety on foreign language reading comprehension as the basic theoretical basis.Based on these theories,three research questions were proposed:(1)Does foreign language reading anxiety influence foreign language reading comprehension?If so,how does it influence foreign language reading comprehension?(2)Does working memory influence foreign language reading comprehension?And if so,how does working memory affect foreign language reading comprehension?(3)Is there the interaction effect between working memory and foreign language reading anxiety on foreign language reading comprehension?And if so,how does this interaction affect foreign language reading comprehension?Based on the above research questions,60 English major students who just attended the second semester of junior year from Jiangxi Normal University worked as the participants,and their foreign language reading anxiety level,working memory,the total score of English reading comprehension,the score of detail questions,the score of inference questions and the score of theme questions were measured.The obtained results from Descriptive Analysis,Pearson Production Moment Correlation Analysis,Independent Sample t-test,Multivariate Analysis of Variance(MANOVA)and Simple Effect indicated that:(1)Foreign language reading anxiety negatively influenced the total scores of foreign language reading comprehension,detail questions and theme questions except inference questions.(2)Working memory positively influenced the total scores of foreign language reading comprehension and all these three types of after-reading questions.(3)There existed an interaction between foreign language reading anxiety and working memory and this interaction could only affect the total scores of foreign language reading comprehension and detail questions.Besides,regardless of the level of foreign language reading anxiety,the influence of working memory on the total scores of foreign language reading comprehension and detail questions was still significant.The results of the present study have a certain significance for the teaching of English reading,which give us a deeper understanding of the influences of foreign language reading anxiety and working memory on foreign language reading comprehension and different types of after-reading questions,thus prompting teachers to pay more attention to the cognitive factors and to better design reading comprehension assessment instruments.In addition,it is hoped that the exploration of the present study will be helpful for future research.