جستجوی مقالات مرتبط با کلیدواژه « foreign language reading anxiety (flra) » در نشریات گروه « علوم انسانی »

Recent developments in mobile technologies are exerting considerable influence on the students’ daily lives and their educational practices. In this regard, mobile assisted reading in language education is gaining increased attention. Within these lines on inquiry, the current study investigated foreign language reading anxiety in mobile learning environment. The data were collected from 50 Iranian EFL learners, divided into control and experimental groups. The participants in the control group were given the reading materials on paper and used traditional materials, while the control group used mobile devices to read the assigned texts. Both groups participated in reading comprehension tests before and after the treatment. The findings revealed that mobile assisted reading in English contributed significantly to anxiety reduction among the learners, nevertheless, its impacts on comprehension were insignificant. The findings have some implications for teaching EFL reading, and contributes to growing body of knowledge in mobile assisted reading.

The present study was conducted to examine empirically and systematically the effect of explicit instruction of comprehension strategies on EFL learners’ reading anxiety and reading comprehension in Iranian high schools. To this end, two intact classes (65 students) participated in this study as members of control and experimental groups. The experimental group underwent 10 sessions of reading strategies training based on McNamara, Ozuro, Best, and O’Reilly's (2007) 4-pronged Comprehension Strategy Framework. Data were collected through the employment of Saito, Garza, and Horwitz's (1999) Foreign Language Reading Anxiety Scale (FLRAS) and Preliminary English Test (PET) multiple-choice reading comprehension tests. All the students filled the FLRAS questionnaire and took the reading comprehension test two times, once as a pre-test one week before the beginning of instruction and the other as a post-test one week after the instructional treatment. After the post-test, a group of 7 students who received instruction participated in the focus group interview. T-tests were used to analyze the obtained statistical data. It was revealed that explicit reading strategy instruction was quite beneficial in improving EFL high school student's comprehension and reducing their anxiety level, while reading anxiety and reading comprehension were negatively correlated. The results of the interview with the focus group revealed the positive effect of strategy training on learner's reading comprehension and alleviating reading anxiety. This study rendered some educational implications for materials developers and instructors to invest on reading as a fundamental skill in education.

Foreign Language Reading Anxiety (FLRA), distinguished as a distinct phenomenon from general language anxiety, has been shown to have a negative impact on reading comprehension skill especially for less proficient EFL learners. FLRA is believed to originate from "unfamiliar writing system" or learner's difficulty in pronouncing words and sentences (Saito, Graza, & Horwitz, 1999). Slow or word by word readers are often anxious while trying to read unfamiliar words. In addition, readers experience anxiety when they want to relate text's message to their background knowledge; FLRA comes from "unfamiliar cultural materials" (Saito, et al., 1999). Pedagogical implications of FLRA studies usually suggest anxiety free situations as well as anxiety reducing strategies to help low level learners overcome their reading anxiety and better develop their reading skills. This study was conducted to find the possible effect of an amalgamate of scaffolded and extensive reading (SER) to relieve FLRA. Fourty low-ability readers were divided into two groups, control and experimental groups. Experimental group read 10 story books during ten weeks in a scaffolded environment, whereas control group continued their traditional reading class. Analysis of the results of the study indicated that after treatment, the experimental group was significantly less anxious than the control group and confirmed the effectiveness of the program to reduce FLRA of Iranian low proficient readers.