FOREIGN LANGUAGE READING ANXIETY AMONG INDONESIAN EFL SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS

This study aims to investigate phenomenon of fo · guage reading anxiety among Indonesian EFL Senior High School students. Thirty two students of grade eleven in a senior high school in Bandung were involved as the participants. This study employed a survey research design. The primary data source was collected by three types of questionnaires and the secondary data source was gained by an interview. The findings revealed that reading anxiety does exist. Most of the students perceived anxiety in mediwn level (71, 9%). Unknown vocabulary was considered as the most potential factor of reading anxiety under the aspect of text features (49%). Subsequently, fear of making error was nominated as the highest potential factor of reading anxiety under the aspect of personal factors (39%). The existence of reading anxiety was also supported by inefficient reading strategies employed by students. Two Problem Solving Strategies and one Support Reading Strategies were considered as the most used reading strategies. Those strategies mostly reflect bottom-up processing in reading. Meanwhile, the use of Global Reading Strategies which reflect top-down processing was ignored by students. The students are suggested to use interactive processing which combines elements of bottom-up and top-down models in order to reduce their reading anxiety. Keywords: Reading, Reading Anxiety, Problem Solving Stralegies, Support Reading Strategies, Global Reading Strategie