READING ENGLISH COMPREHENSION DIFFICULTIES AFRICAN LEARNERS

Reading English Comprehension Difficulties African Learners



Reading English Comprehension Difficulties African Learners

Introduction

The problem is that English as a second and foreign language students in junior college lacked the skills to cope with reading comprehension tests. Students did not have the tools to achieve high scores in reading comprehension tests. They did not have effective reading strategies to guide them on their reading comprehension tests. The purpose of this paper is to determine the causes of this problem for junior college students on the skills they lacked and improve student scores on reading comprehension tests within a particular junior college setting. Learners found reading for information easy in their first language but more difficult in a second or foreign language. Reading comprehension tests caused anxiety and a sense of failure for students who did not have the skills to cope with the tests. Reading in a second language is not easy but taking tests made it even more difficult. Students lack the skills to cope with reading and taking a test in a foreign language. They display symptoms of anxiety and score poorly on their reading comprehension tests.

Discussion

Junior college students experienced problems when taking reading comprehension tests. Reading in a foreign language causes anxiety and poor language achievement "in conjunction of students' levels of reading anxiety and general foreign language anxiety" (Saito, Thomas, & Horwitz, 1999, p. 202). Unfamiliar scripts, writing systems, and unfamiliar cultural material cause reading anxiety (Saito, et al, 1999, p. 215). "Low language proficiency and teacher diversity may be causing an emotional block" (Zhang, 2000, p. 31) in students when they take a reading comprehension test. Foreign and second language students have irrational beliefs that cause anxiety and affect language achievement (Tittle, 1997).

"Anxiety is a basic human emotion [that] consist [s] of fear and uncertainty" (Sarason, 1988, p. 19). Anxiety has its good and bad sides. On the one hand it helps avoid dangerous events that can be life threatening. On the other hand, it causes people to freeze as they avoid non-dangerous situations. The mind cannot distinguish between what is life threatening or just a stressful situation. "One such event [that causes minds to freeze but is not dangerous], is testing" (Harris & Coy, 2003, p. 1). Testing is not a dangerous situation. What can a learner do to trick the mind into believing that testing is not dangerous? "The aim of stress management is to break the link between irrelevant stress reactions (diffused attention, fear, etc.), and academic tasks" (Rubenzer, 1988, p. 2). This research review will explain the relationship between anxiety and academic reading performance on English as a second language comprehension tests.

"Foreign language anxiety and irrational beliefs" (Tittle, 1997, p. 3) are important issues that need consideration for a better understanding of what ESL students experience in the ESL classroom. Mathew Tittle claims that ESL students "experience [a kind of] anxiety that is related [to] test anxiety, fear of negative evaluation, and communication apprehension"(1997, ...