A Study On The Correlation Between Junior High School Students’ Tolerance Of Ambiguity And The Use Of English Reading Strategies

In the reading process,students inevitably encounter situations where the information they read is ambiguous,contradictory and uncertain.And if students can not tolerate this,they may experience anxiety and other negative emotions that can prevent them from reading successfully.Some learners adopt appropriate reading strategies to improve reading efficiency and help themselves to complete the reading task.Ambiguity tolerance and English reading strategies are both the key factors affecting second language acquisition,but the correlation between them has not been widely studied.Therefore,this study aims to explore the correlation between ambiguity tolerance and English reading strategies,and reveal the intrinsic characteristics of them,so as to provide some suggestions to teachers’ English teaching.Therefore,this study puts forward the following three questions:(1)What is the status quo of junior high school students’ ambiguity tolerance?(2)What is the status quo of junior high school students’ use of English reading strategies?(3)What’s the correlation between junior high school students’ tolerance of ambiguity and the use of English reading strategies?The methods of this study include questionnaire survey method and interview method.Firstly,a total of 183 junior high school students from a middle school in Fuzhou were distributed questionnaires on ambiguity tolerance and on English reading strategies to find out the level of students’ ambiguity tolerance and the status quo of their use of English reading strategies.Secondly,according to the scores on the ambiguity tolerance questionnaire,the students were divided into high,middle and low ambiguity tolerance groups.And three students were randomly selected from the high ambiguity tolerance group and the low ambiguity tolerance group to conduct interviews in order to gain a comprehensive understanding of the students’ practices and the use of learning strategies when faced with ambiguous information in reading material.By analyzing the data collected,this study found that:(1)The overall ambiguity tolerance level of junior high school students is at a moderately high level.Among them,students’ ambiguity tolerance level is the highest in the complex context dimension.In the unfamiliar context dimension,students’ ambiguity tolerance level is the lowest.(2)Junior high school students’ use of English reading strategies is generally at a moderate level.Among them,the level of cognitive strategies is the highest,followed by metacognitive strategies,and the use of affective and social strategies is the lowest.(3)There is a positive correlation between the level of ambiguity tolerance and the use of English reading strategies among junior high school students.In other words,the higher the level of students’ ambiguity tolerance,the more frequently they use English reading strategies.Specifically,cognitive strategies have the highest correlation with the dimensions of ambiguity tolerance,affective and social strategies have the second highest correlation with the dimensions of ambiguity tolerance,and metacognitive strategies have the lowest correlation with the dimensions of ambiguity tolerance.Based on the findings of the study,the author offers some teaching suggestions and enlightenment:(1)Teachers and students should enhance their own understanding of ambiguity tolerance.(2)Teachers should develop students’ moderate level of ambiguity tolerance and encourage them to make bold speculations and attempts.(3)Teachers should focus on training students in reading strategies,especially affective and social strategies.(4)Teachers should permeate cultural background knowledge in reading teaching.(5)Students should consolidate their basic knowledge of English and read a wide range of English reading materials.(6)Students should learn to mediate their anxiety.The author hopes this study will enrich the theoretical development of ambiguity tolerance and English reading strategies and provide some implications for practical English reading teaching.