Language Anxiety and Reading Comprehension: A Correlational Study

Anxiety remains becoming an internal factor influencing students’ successfulness in learning English as a Foreign Language (EFL) namely in Indonesia. This study was aimed at examining whether there was a statistically significant correlation between the eighth-grade students’ language anxiety and their language skills, namely reading comprehension. This study was a correlational study, which participants were one hundred eighth-grade students of SMP Negeri 49 Jakarta. Data were collected from language anxiety questionnaire and reading comprehension test, and statistically analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Pearson product moment correlation and regression analysis were used to determine whether there was a significant correlation between the students’ language anxiety and their reading comprehension. The data analysis presented that there was a statistically significant, negative correlation between the students’ language anxiety and their reading comprehension, , r(98) = - 0.237, p < .05, with language anxiety explaining 6.2% of the variability in the students’ reading comprehension. Accordingly, it is suggested that EFL teaching and learning activities must be in an anxiety-free atmosphere to make the language mastery successful. Moreover, the teaching instructions, learning materials, including the assessment must be well-planned. Keywords: Reading comprehension, language anxiety, correlatio