Abstract

• The main purpose of this study was to investigate foreign language anxiety and English Reading Comprehension Skills of middle school students from selected schools (2019-2020 Academic Year) in Tada-U Township. Moreover, the present study was to find out the differences in foreign language anxiety and English Reading Comprehension Skills of middle school students among demographic characteristics (gender, school type and parents’ education level). The quantitative research design and descriptive survey method were used in this study. A total of 904 middle school students from selected Basic Education Schools in Tada-U Township were selected as participants by using simple random sampling technique. As research instruments, Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) developed by Horwitz, Horwitz and Cope (1986) and teacher made test for English Reading Comprehension Skills were used to measure students’ foreign language anxiety and English Reading Comprehension Skills. After that, the data were analyzed by using descriptive statistics, Independent Samples t Test and one way ANOVA. The results revealed that there were significant differences in both foreign language anxiety and English Reading Comprehension Skills of students by gender. In foreign language anxiety, male students were higher in language anxiety than female students and in English Reading Comprehension Skills, female students performed better than male students. Although one of the demographic factors, school type, was not shown significant difference in foreign language anxiety, it was significant difference in English Reading Comprehension Skills. Moreover, according to parents’ education level, there were significant differences in both foreign language anxiety and English Reading Comprehension Skills of students respectively. Moreover, Pearson Product Moment Correlation revealed that foreign language anxiety was negatively correlated with English Reading Comprehension Skills of students (r = -.300, p<0.01). Therefore, if the students had less foreign language anxiety, they will perform better in English Reading Comprehension Skills.