Foreign Language Anxiety and Reading Motivation of Students

Abstract

This study aims to determine whether foreign language anxiety significantly correlates with students’ reading motivation. The working group for the present study, in which a quantitative descriptive design was employed, included 162 students enrolled in one of the Colleges in Digos City. Participants answered the adapted standardized questionnaires to quantify which dimension of Foreign Language Anxiety significantly correlates to the Reading Motivation of students. The collected data were interpreted using the mean to determine the central tendency and Pearson r. Regression analysis was used to predict the value of reading motivation based on the value of foreign language anxiety. The survey findings revealed that the level of foreign language anxiety among students is moderate, and the level of reading motivation is high. The result also shows that there is a significant relationship between foreign language anxiety and the reading motivation of students, but only self-confidence, one of the indicators of foreign language anxiety, has a substantial relationship with reading motivation while using English in class. Class preparation and overcoming with efforts are the three indicators of foreign language anxiety that pose no considerable relationship with student’s reading motivation. The results validated the eight domains of reading motivation, which includes grades, self-efficacy, curiosity, participation, leisure, instrumentalism, social family, and social peer.