ENGLISH LANGUAGE ANXIETY AND READING COMPREHENSION PERFORMANCE OF COLLEGE STUDENTS IN A STATE UNIVERSITY
Keywords:
Language anxiety, reading anxiety, reading comprehension, classroom environmentAbstract
This study was conducted to investigate the relationship between language and reading anxiety and reading comprehension performance of AB English students. The issue of whether students’ LA and RA vary with gender was also explored. The results from two measures of anxiety, and two reading comprehension tests completed by 65 AB English students showed that RA and LA was related to Reading Performance. Although reading comprehension performance did not differ significantly with the students in different levels of LA and RA, a general trend of lower LA and RA going with higher performance was identified. In contrast to other studies, no difference was found in LA and RA based on gender. Students’ LA decreased with their learning in reading classes while RA showed no differences. These results suggest that students with LA tend to have RA.
Decreasing students’ anxiety and creating a low-anxiety classroom environment might help improve students’ reading comprehension performance. Since RA seems to be a more stable construct as compared to LA, coping with RA may require more time.
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