| With the restructuring of College Entrance Examination deepening,the difficulty of English test papers has come to the next level over the recent years,as is manifested in the scope and depth of the reading materials.Reading has long been centered in English language teaching.Although English language teachers have been dedicating most of the classroom time to reading drills,with their students doing the same,the result is not quite satisfactory.A wide variety of researchers have found that besides the objective factor of the readability of the reading materials,some subjective factors may play a part,among which the affective factors have drawn many linguists’ attention.The 1970 s witnessed the emergence of scholars researching the effect of affective factors on language learning in large numbers.Spielberger and Horwitz agree that anxiety is one of the most critical psychological variables affecting foreign language learning.They found that foreign language anxiety is distinct from general anxiety,which is a unique and complex psychological phenomenon for language learners.Saito et al.(1999)compiled the first foreign language reading anxiety scale(FLRAS)and pointed out both the correlation and difference between foreign language reading anxiety and general foreign language anxiety.For English test reading anxiety,relevant domestic studies show that there are significant differences in the level of English test reading anxiety among students with different English scores.The higher the English score,the lower the anxiety level.According to a large quantity of educational practices and investigations,high school seniors are subject to the following testing types during examinations:(1)gap filling with the given words;(2)cloze tests;(3)reading comprehension passage(C).This research aims at investigating whether high school seniors show distinct attitudes towards the above mentioned three testing types,and whether different testing types may bring about varied degree of anxiety.Taking the opportunity of the district unified final examination of the first semester of senior three,all 173 high school seniors studying at the author’s school participated in the study.The questionnaire in the study were compiled by the author based on Saito’s Foreign Language Reading Anxiety Scale and Semantic Difference Scale.The global analysis on the research data indicates the following results:(1)The subjects are at a medium level of English reading anxiety generally,among whom the students of science showed lower anxiety level than students of liberal arts.(2)The subjects showed highest anxiety level towards the testing type of gap filling with the given words,followed by cloze and reading comprehension passage C respectively.(3)The subjects’ fear of cloze tests ranked first,followed by gap filling tests and reading comprehension tests.The latest version of General English Language Curriculum Standards issued by the Ministry of Education in 2017 has directly stated the indispensable roles affective factors play in language teaching.While more and more students are suffering from mental disorders,our language teachers haven’t attached enough importance to the phenomenon,which is worth digging into and discussing.This research is of great instructional significance to English reading teaching.When training students during reading exercises,teachers ought to observe how different testing types can induce negative effects due to affective factors and cultivate students’ affective strategy accordingly,thus helping students alleviate the anxiety symptoms caused by different testing types in the English test. |
