EFL Learners’ Reading Strategy Use in Relation to Reading Anxiety

Abstract

The study investigated EFL learners’ reading strategies use in relation to reading anxiety and gender after their participation in extensive reading as a supplemental course requirement. One hundred and eight EFL college freshmen completed a questionnaire, a survey of Foreign Language Reading Anxiety Scale (FLRAS), and a modified Survey of Reading Strategies (SORS) after eighteen weeks of participation in extensive reading. The results indicate a negative correlation between reading anxiety and reading strategies. It was also found that EFL learners with low anxiety levels tended to use general reading strategies such as guessing, while EFL learners with high anxiety levels employed basic support mechanisms, such as translation, to help themselves understand texts. Some reading strategies were more used by high-anxiety level readers than low-anxiety level readers. Additionally, females tended to be slightly more anxious than males in reading. Language anxiety, a complex psychological construct, is regarded as an affective variable in the language learning process. Research on language anxiety has examined the possible relationship between anxiety and performance, and its interference in language competence (Horwitz, Horwitz, & Cope, 1986; MacIntyre & Gardner, 1989; Sellers, 2000). The majority of studies have centered on the influence of language anxiety on listening or speaking in language classroom (Horwitz et al., 1986; Phillips, 1992; Price, 1991; Young, 1991). However, anxiety also can be a crucial filter for foreign language (FL) learners as they attempt to comprehend reading or listening passages. The literature on foreign language reading suggests that affective variables such as anxiety could be contributing factors in reading performance (Mohd. Zin & Rafik-Galea, 2010; Saito, Horwitz, & Garza, 1999; Sellers, 2000). In a preliminary study, Saito et al. (1999) indicated that foreign language reading anxiety is distinct from general foreign language anxiety and concluded that learners’ levels of reading anxiety were correlated with