engleski

Foreign Language Reading Anxiety: German as a Foreign Language

Foreign language anxiety has attracted the interest of applied linguists and psychologists. Even though the acquisition of foreign language encompasses all four language skills (reading, writing, speaking and listening) it was assumed that the reading process doesn’t cause negative emotions such as reading anxiety. Reading is a complex process in which pupil needs to apply not only his language competence but coordinate his attention, memory and perception in order to understand the text he is reading. Many researchers have tried to investigate the existence of foreign language reading anxiety. This study intends to investigate the presence of reading anxiety among Croatian pupils of German language. Furthermore, we intend to see the causes of the anxiety. The study is conducted among pupils in the 5th and 8th grade of a primary school. In the theoretical framework we describe general foreign language learning anxiety, recent results in the field and the explanation of reading anxiety as a special type of fear. The current study aimed to investigate levels of reading anxiety among pupils of German and how it correlates with their success in foreign language acquisition. Besides, the study intends to investigate possible causes of anxiety. Total results show that pupils have moderate level of anxiety which supports the fact that the anxiety is present in reading comprehension as well. The analyses has shown that pupils who show higher level of anxiety achieved lower grade in the subject and that higher anxiety is present among pupils who studied German for shorter period of time. Factors which affect German language reading anxiety of moderate level are the ways pupils read the text. Factors such as the length of a text or the context of a text haven’t been confirmed as those that affect German language reading anxiety. The study has shown that pupils don’t feel high level of anxiety due to pupils’ positive attitudes about reading.

reading skill, foreign language anxiety, foreign language reading anxiety, German language

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