The Structural Relationships Between Anxiety,self-efficacy And Proficiency In Listening And Reading Among Chinese EFL Learners

Listening and reading fall within the linguistic input that is the most foundational and considerable stage for learners in the course of foreign language learning.Meanwhile,listening and reading,as the crucially important ways of language input,have a vital effect on the stage of the information process and language output.The study of exploring factors affecting students’ listening and reading capabilities is crucial in the realm of language acquisition.Plentiful research provided sufficient evidence to demonstrate that emotional factors like anxiety and self-efficacy significantly affect the performance of listening and reading.But the previous studies on anxiety and self-efficacy of listening and reading came to different even contradictory results,and the influence of gender as a crucial factor in this relationship was also a controversial question.Moreover,in the aspect of data analysis,numerous studies are only based on regression analysis to examine a linear relationship.Few of them utilized the structural model to discuss mediating and moderating effects,and complex structural relations among anxiety,self-efficacy,and foreign language performance.Based on this,there is abundant room for further progress in exploring the relationship between anxiety,self-efficacy,and performance of listening and reading.The current study aims to examine three hypotheses:(1)Self-efficacy is a mediator to affect the relationship between anxiety and proficiency in listening and reading.(2)Gender is a moderator to affect the relationship between the dependent and independent variables.(3)There is a structural relationship between cross-category anxiety,self-efficacy,and proficiency in listening and reading.To this end,229 non-English major students enrolled in an integrated course of College English program at Yantai University were involved in this study,four questionnaires were utilized for the measurement of anxiety and self-efficacy levels,and the listening and reading scores collected from CET4.Moreover,the mediation model,moderation model,and structural equation model were utilized for analyzing data.The findings indicated that self-efficacy could act as a mediator in the correlation between anxiety and proficiency in listening and reading.And the moderating effect of gender only existed in one path of the listening moderation model,but it did not yield a significant result in the reading moderation model.Moreover,a noteworthy observation was that reading proficiency could have a positive influence on listening performance.The above results responded to previous controversies and provided empirical support for the structural relationship between anxiety,self-efficacy and performance of listening and reading.The findings may be beneficial to teachers and educators who aim to facilitate students’ listening and reading abilities.In English listening and reading instruction,teachers should acknowledge the importance of anxiety and self-efficacy.On the one hand,teachers can reduce students’ anxiety levels by choosing appropriate listening and reading materials,promoting students’ success and self-evaluation.On the other hand,to improve students’ self-efficacy,teachers should inspire them to establish realistic learning goals and.provide positive feedback to them.