A Study On The Relationship Between Senior High School Students’ English Reading Anxiety And Reading Achievement

As one of the factors affecting students’ second language acquisition,anxiety plays an important role in students’ English learning performances.In previous studies,anxiety was frequently associated with oral English learning,but anxiety in reading has received scarce attention from English teachers and researchers.The concept of reading literacy has been widely concerned since the new curriculum reform starts and gradually become the goal of English education in middle school.Therefore,the development and enhancement of students’ reading literacy is a crucial task in English education.A number of studies have confirmed that reading engagement,an indispensable part of reading literacy,has positive effects on improving reading achievement.However,the majority of the existing studies focused on reading engagement in the native language and ignored the reading engagement of EFL learners.In addition,studies on reading anxiety,reading engagement and reading achievement only explored the correlation among the variables,and lack of research on their internal mechanism.Therefore,in order to help secondary school teachers and students deeply realize the significant effects of English reading anxiety and reading engagement on reading achievement,this study aims to explore the status quo of high school students’ English reading anxiety and reading engagement,and further examine whether reading engagement can play a mediating role in the influence of English reading anxiety on reading achievement.Therefore,guided by the control-value theory,this study aims to answer the following three research questions:(1)What is the current situation of senior high school students’ English reading anxiety and reading engagement?(2)What are the relationships among senior high school students’ English reading anxiety,reading engagement and reading achievement?(3)Is there a mediating effect of reading engagement on the relationship between students’ English reading anxiety and reading achievement?Participants of this study are 203 senior one students from a high school in southern China.Questionnaires and semi-structured interviews were used to gather quantitative and qualitative data.By analyzing the data,the following results are drawn:(1)Senor high school students experienced anxiety in the process of English reading,and their reading anxiety and reading engagement were at a medium level.(2)Senor high school students’ English reading anxiety was negatively correlated with reading engagement and reading achievement.In addition,reading engagement positively predicted reading achievement.(3)English reading engagement can mediate the effect of English reading anxiety on reading achievement.Some meaningful implications have been yielded in the present study for secondary school teachers.This study is conducive to inspire English teachers to be deeply aware of the influence of English reading anxiety and reading engagement on reading achievement.Teachers are expected to consciously pay attention to students’ reading anxiety which is easily ignored in reading teaching,judge students’ reading anxiety level more accurately,and motivate students to develop strategies to reduce their reading anxiety.Since reading engagement can positively predict reading achievement,teachers need to attach importance to students’ reading engagement so as to promote the effectiveness of English reading teaching.