EFL Learners Reading Anxiety at University of Islam Malang: Narrative Inquiry

Abstract

Reading skills is an ability that EFL learners used to get knowledge, insight, and new information in the activity of language learning. EFL learners have some difficult in learning English, especially learning reading English. Reading anxiety is anxious feeling when students read the English texts. Therefore the researcher aims to identify the levels, factors, and strategies students Reading Anxiety based on students experience. This study used qualittaive research to answer the research questions. The participants in this study are 4 students from 3rd semester of English Education Department from University of Islam Malang through online WhatsApp voice note. The instrument used in this study is semi-structured interview. The data analyzed used narrative inquiry based on Creswell (2012). Narrative Inquiry is a research design used to collect the experience of students Reading III course and students reading anxiety when reading English text. In this study, the result indicated all the participants viewed that there were 2 students got sometimes “medium” levels and 2 students got often “high” levels of Reading anxiety with two factors that made them have reading anxiety feeling when reading English texts. Those were Text features like unfamiliar vocabulary, unfamiliar topic, and from personal factors like lack of motivation and afraid if making mistake. The strategies to overcome their anxiety were preparation, relaxation and peer seeking. It suggested to know more details the levels of Reading anxiety in University of Islam Malang. Keywords: EFL Learners, Reading Anxiety, Narrative Inquiry