The Sources of Foreign Language Reading Anxiety
in an Indonesian EFL Context
Eva Meidi Kulsum
1,2
, Widodo Dwi Islamil Azis
1
, Tuti Hayati
1
and Agus Salim Mansyur
1
1
UIN Sunan Gunung Djati Bandung
2
English Education Departement, School of Postgraduate, Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia, Bandung
Keywords: Reading Anxiety, EFL Context.
Abstract: Numerous students experienced anxiety in reading a foreign language particularly when they were asked to
read unfamiliar text. This study examined the sources of FL reading anxiety in an Indonesian EFL context, it
was a qualitative descriptive method by distributing Foreign Language Reading Anxiety Scale and taking a
semi-structured interview of which this research highlighted explicitly about the potential sources of students’
reading anxiety which occurred naturally to the students who learned EFL reading in an English dormitory
and considered as a case study. The data from FLRAS was analyzed qualitatively by calculating manually the
percentages and mean scores of the student responses to infer the data findings. While the interview data was
analyzed to corroborate and confirm the data from questionnaire. It was found that, in an Indonesian EFL
context, > 50% students considered text features were more caused them anxious in reading, while the rest
recognized that personal factors also have a negative impact on their reading performances. However,
choosing an appropriate text will be better to be considered for teachers in teaching EFL reading in order to
decrease the students’ anxiety and increase the students’ interest in reading.
1 INTRODUCTION
It is well known that the quality of reading interest of
both children and adults in Indonesia is very low. It
has been reported by several international and
national surveys, one of them is reported by the
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO) in 2012. It was found that
reading interest index in Indonesia only reached
0.001. This means that in every 1,000 people, there is
only one person who has an interest in reading. While
the United Nations Development Programme
(UNDP) released that the literacy rate of Indonesian
adults only reached 65.5 percent, while Malaysia
reached 86.4 percent (Hazliansyah, 2012). Based on
a survey conducted by the International Education
Achievement (IEA) in early 2000 showed that the
reading quality of Indonesian children ranked 29 out
of 31 countries studied in Asia, Africa, Europe and
America. Thus, it is not surprising that the Human
Development Index (HDI) in Indonesia is also low.
This is in line with a survey conducted by UNDP in
2005 that HDI in Indonesia is ranked 117 out of 175
countries (Bimba, 2013). Based on the above
evidence, educators and teachers must wonder why it
could happen to Indonesian especially students. Why
is students’ reading interest in Indonesia low? What
are the factors of the low interest of reading in
Indonesia? Why are they reluctance in reading? Are
they anxious? What are the factors of students’
reading anxiety?
In relation to reading skill, Sellers (2000) defined
reading as a cognitively demanding process which
involves the organization of memory, attention,
perception, and the process of comprehension.
Therefore, reading is considered as a sophisticated
skill by students for several reasons. First, the lack of
motivation in reading. This problem is mostly
experienced by students at the university level when
they have to read a thick text book that is
uninteresting to them as it is known that motivation
supports their concentration and helps them in
comprehending the text both logically and
emotionally, reading problem is possibly experienced
by them. Another consideration is that worried and
anxiety in comprehending the text. Numerous
students experience anxiety in reading particularly
when they are asked to read unfamiliar text. They
think that the topic of the text is too hard and difficult
to be comprehended. The process of reading then
446
Kulsum, E., Azis, W., Hayati, T. and Mansyur, A.
The Sources of Foreign Language Reading Anxiety in an Indonesian EFL Context.
In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Sociology Education (ICSE 2017) - Volume 1, pages 446-451
ISBN: 978-989-758-316-2
Copyright © 2018 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved

becomes more complicated when students have to
read a foreign language text. There are some
additional factors that must be taken into account
such as text’s cultural background, the ability of the
language being read, unfamiliar scripts, and writing
systems of the text Saito et al., (1999). Thus, anxiety
may cause students avoid reading.
Based on the phenomenon, this study investigated
the sources of Foreign Language Reading Anxiety
(FLRA) in EFL classroom. Since it is considered as
the most powerful predictor on students’ reading
performance, it is necessary to identify the students
who experience anxiety in EFL reading.
2 LITERATURE REVIEW
Anxiety plays an important role in learning a foreign
language. It is considered as one of the affective
variables that contribute to the individual differences.
This is in line with (Brown, 2007) statement, saying
that among the affective variables, anxiety is the main
affective role in second or foreign language
acquisition. In relation to language learning,
(Horwitz, Horwitz and Cope, 1986) defined that FLA
is “a distinct complex of self-perceptions, beliefs,
feelings, and behaviors related to classroom language
learning arising from the uniqueness of the (foreign)
language learning process”. Many researchers have
proven that anxiety has a negative relationship with
language performance, for example: Steinberg and
Horwitz (1986); Phillips (1992); Elkhafaifi (2005).
Moreover, another study indicated that it can be a
predictor of success in learning the foreign language
(Horwitz, Horwitz and Cope, 1986). Supported by
Liu and Huang (2011) who noted that among the
affective factors anxiety is the most powerful
predictor that contribute to the students' performance.
In an attempt to understand why some students
have difficulties in learning a new language,
investigating the foreign language anxiety has
increasingly attracted many researchers’ attention in
the field of foreign language learning. For example:
Horwitz, Horwitz and Cope (1986); Bailey,
Onwuegbuzie and Daley (2000); Horwitz (2001);
Burden (2004). The result of those studies indicated
that speaking is the most provoking skill causing
anxiety among the four skills. On the other hands,
recent study Al-Shboul et al. (2013) revealed that
each skill has its own anxiety including foreign
language reading anxiety (FLRA). As acknowledged
by Wu (2011) saying that reading is one of the anxiety
provoking skills to the students who learn a foreign or
second language. However, the phenomenon of
anxiety in reading does exist and is researchable.
Abu-Rabia (2004) and Brantmeier (2005) cited in
Zhao, Guo and Dynia (2013) conducted research in
the field of foreign language anxiety. The result of
those studies indicated that among the four skills
(speaking, listening, writing and reading) reading is
the least skill caused anxiety in a foreign language
learning since reading strategies are often used by
students to comprehend a text and considered as
helpful and effective tools. Therefore, recent research
tried to investigate a specific skill caused anxiety such
as Saito, Horwitz and Garza (1999) and Sellers
(2000). They reported that the existence of reading
anxiety is real and it has negative effects on the
students’ performance, especially on the students’
cognitive abilities. Jafarigohar and Behrooznia
(2012) proposed in his research that foreign language
reading caused anxiety and insufficient attainment of
language performance.
Saito, Horwitz and Garza (1999) as the first
researcher who analyzed anxiety in EFL reading
found that it is a distinguishable phenomenon from
anxiety in general but they are related to each other.
They develop a tool to measure students reading
anxiety in EFL learning, namely Foreign Language
Reading Anxiety Scale (EFLRAI) consisting 20
statements in Likert Scale start from “Strongly
Agree” to “Strongly Disagree”. To test reliability and
validity, they used two instruments, (Foreign
Language Anxiety Scale) FLCAS and EFLRAI. The
result of the study revealed that students who have a
high level of FL anxiety in general also tend to
experience reading anxiety. A correlation coefficient
was .64 which indicated that it was the sufficient
result to confirm that the existence of reading anxiety
is fairly different phenomenon from the general type
of foreign language anxiety.
Considering the existence of reading anxiety,
Ahmad et al. (2013) postulated that foreign language
reading anxiety is influenced by two factors, those
are: personal factors and text features. For more
explanation, it will be covered below:
2.1 Personal Factors
Personal factors are the first source of reading
anxiety, in this concept, there are two sub-factors
divided which are worry about reading effects and
afraid of making errors, more explanation covers
below:
a. Worry about Reading Effects: Numerous students
experience anxiety in a foreign language reading
moreover when they are pointed by their teacher
The Sources of Foreign Language Reading Anxiety in an Indonesian EFL Context
447

to read a text in front of their classmates. They
tend to be more focus on their reading
performance in front of class rather than their
comprehension of the text they read. However,
when their teacher then asked them to convey the
idea of the text they read in front of their
classmates, they would have no idea what to say
as their comprehension lose. Consequently, it
might cause students experience anxiety during
the whole process of reading whether it is during
or after reading which disturbs students on their
reading comprehension and performance at the
same time. This has been proven by some
researchers that worry about reading effect is
considered as one of foreign language reading
anxiety sources such as Zhao, Guo and Dynia
(2013), they examined the factors influenced
anxiety in reading a foreign language, he found
that worrying about reading effect might be a
potential source of reading anxiety in a foreign
language.
b. Afraid of Making Errors: Second sub-factors of
the concept of personal factor is afraid of making
errors. As we know that students who have no
self-confidence are seldom participate in reading
task since they are afraid of making errors.
However, avoidance in reading participation
cannot be denied. This condition causes students
become anxious in reading a foreign language.
Therefore, the students’ language proficiency and
their reading ability show an abnormality since
their performance in reading decreases. This is in
line with Miyanaga (2007), saying that lack of
reading self-confidence was indicated as a source
of foreign language reading anxiety. Thus, other
studies about the sources of foreign language
anxiety revealed that afraid of making mistakes is
included to be one of the potential sources.
2.2 Text Features
Second underlying factors contribute to foreign
language anxiety is text features. It is found that three
factors are considered to be the sub categories of this
concept which are: unfamiliar culture, unfamiliar
topic and unknown vocabulary.
a. Unfamiliar Culture: This sub-factor relates to the
reading task which is not only acknowledged as
an interaction between the reader and the author
thoughts, it is also considered as an interaction
between the reader and the cultural knowledge of
the text. This cultural content often disturbs
students’ understanding of the text if the culture
of the text is unfamiliar to them. Furthermore,
(Kuru-Gonen, 2009) in his study found that
unknown cultural background of the text blocks
the students’ understanding of foreign language
script.
b. Unfamiliar Topic: Topics becomes one of the
things that often become the focus of the students’
in reading since it is believed that students prefer
to read a topic of the text which they considered
easy and enjoyable. When the topic gets hard or
difficult even it is felt not interesting for them, it
may lead students to experience anxiety and avoid
reading that unfamiliar topic. However, Kuru-
Gonen (2009) conducted a research related to it,
the result of the study indicated that uninteresting
topics caused students avoid reading and
experience anxiety in EFL reading. Thus, it is
identified as a source of foreign language reading
anxiety which has a negative effect on students’
reading comprehension.
c. Unknown Vocabulary: This subfactor related to
the words students found during reading in a
foreign language, when the words are strange or
difficult to be understood it may automatically
impact to their comprehension which creates the
sense of anxiety in EFL reading. Therefore, it has
been found that unknown vocabulary is classified
as another source of anxiety in EFL reading. In a
study of Kuru-Gonen (2009), in reading a foreign
language text, unknown vocabulary considered to
be another factor influenced anxious students.
3 METHOD
This research employed qualitative descriptive
method by distributing questionnaires and taking a
semi-structured interview of which this research
highlighted explicitly about the potential sources of
students’ reading anxiety which occurred naturally to
the students who learned EFL reading in an English
dormitory and considered as a case study. The study
was carried out in an English Dormitory of State
University in Bandung. English as a Foreign
Language (EFL) Learning is the preeminent program
of the dormitory. 23 students who were from different
majors were selected as a subject of this study using
purposive sampling technique. This study used 26
statements of FLRAS (Al-Shboul et al., 2013) which
reflected two sources of reading anxiety, namely
personal factors, and text features. Those were
divided into five: unknown vocabulary (items 1-6),
unfamiliar topic (items 7-10), unfamiliar culture
(items 11-15), worry about reading effects (items 16-
20), and afraid of making errors (items 21-26). After
ICSE 2017 - 2nd International Conference on Sociology Education
448

the result from FLRAS gained, it was categorized into
three level of reading anxiety started from high,
moderate and low. Finally, it was then divided into
two categories of reading anxiety sources from
Ahmad et al. (2013). The data from FLRAS was
analyzed qualitatively by calculating manually the
percentages and mean scores of the student responses
to infer the data findings. The result from FLRAS
then was used to select students who were involved
in the interview session; those were students who
categorized into a high level of reading anxiety.
While the interview data was analyzed to corroborate
and confirm the data from questionnaires.
4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
In order to know the sources of EFL reading anxiety,
the FLRAS was used not only to see the sources of
students’ reading anxiety but also the students’
reading anxiety level as it was considered important
to prove that reading anxiety does exist among
students in EFL learning and to select students who
were involved in the interview session; those were
students who categorized into a high level of reading
anxiety. However, descriptive statistics were used to
present the result, it was found that the overall
analysis for the 26 items of FFLRAS portrayed in
table 1 below. It highlighted the percentages of
students’ reading anxiety level.
Table 1: Reading anxiety level.
Level
Range
Mean
F
Percentage
Low
55-71
2.6
3
13%
Moderate
72-93
3.4
15
65%
High
94-113
4.4
5
22%
From the table above, it can be seen that 13% (3
out of 23 students) experience a low level of reading
anxiety, 65% students got mean scores above 3 which
mean that 15 students are slightly anxious students,
and 5 students were considered as students who
experience a high level of reading anxiety as they got
the mean scores above 4; the 5 high anxious students
were selected as students who were involved in the
interview session. Thus, the table shows that as a
whole, students experienced anxiety in EFL reading
which means that this study is reasonably conducted.
As acknowledged by Wu (2011) saying that reading
is one of the anxiety provoking skills to the students
who learn a foreign or second language. However, the
phenomenon of anxiety in reading does exist and is
researchable. Research about the existence of reading
anxiety has been conducted by many researchers, the
pioneer of this research was Saito, Horwitz and Garza
(1999). It examined the anxiety in a foreign or second
language reading. The participants of the study were
383 students of French, Japanese and Russian
courses. They were in the first semester of the study.
FLCAS and Foreign Language Reading Anxiety
Scale (FLRAS) were used as the instruments. FLCAS
was previously developed by Horwitz, Horwitz and
Cope (1986). While FLRAS was developed by the
researcher to measure the anxiety related to reading
in a foreign language. The result of the study found
that EFL reading can be considered as a skill causing
anxiety to some students. Whereas FLA, in general,
has been identified as a distinct phenomenon.
However, students’ perceptions of the difficulty of
EFL reading impact to the higher levels of their
reading anxiety consequently their grades decreased
in conjunction with their levels of reading anxiety and
general FL anxiety. The researcher suggested the
other researchers who were interesting in the field of
anxiety in relation to EFL reading to conduct more
research related to it. Since it is believed that the
research about reading anxiety is still open inquiry
and are needed to be more comprehended.
4.1 The Sources of Reading Anxiety
To answer the question, the FLRAS was supported by
semi-structured interview sessions in order to provide
triangulated findings and analysis on the sources of
reading anxiety among students in EFL learning.
Table 2 elaborated the sources of FL reading anxiety
obtained from FLRAS.
Table 2: The sources of reading anxiety.
No
Sources
Mean
1
Text Features
3.3
2
Personal Factors
3.1
It was found that > 50% students considered text
features were more caused students anxious in
reading, while the rest recognized that personal
factors also have a negative impact on their reading
performance. For the sake of clarity, the explanation
of each source is covered below.
4.1.1 Text Features
These factors were divided into three broad
categories, namely unknown vocabulary, unfamiliar
culture topic and unfamiliar culture. The students
were given FLRAS which could reflect the sources of
reading anxiety experienced by them in EFL learning.
6 statements (items 1-6) reflected unknown
The Sources of Foreign Language Reading Anxiety in an Indonesian EFL Context
449

vocabulary as one of the reading anxiety sources
followed by 4 statements (items 7-10) for unfamiliar
topic and 5 statements (items 11-15) for unfamiliar
culture.
The result of this research showed that students
were considered unfamiliar topic as the hardest
problem mostly experienced by them in EFL reading
as they felt anxious when they found a topic that they
have no idea about which automatically impact on
their reluctance in reading. This is in line with a study
conducted by Kuru-Gonen (2009), the result of the
study indicated that uninteresting topics caused
students avoid reading and experience anxiety in EFL
reading. Unknown vocabulary was also considered as
another source of FL reading anxiety. In this case,
students focused on recognizing the words more as
they thought that a large of word recognition helped
them in understanding the text. On the other hands,
they would encounter anxiety when they found
strange vocabularies and series of strange words. In a
study of Kuru-Gonen (2009), in reading a foreign
language text, unknown vocabulary considered to be
another factor influenced anxious students.
Besides that, students also were frustrating when
they could not understand the text even though they
know each word of the sentences as they translate the
text word by word without considering the culture of
the language of the text they read and they still got
difficulty when they tried to relate a word to another
word but the meaning of those two words seemed
changing, these conditions were associated with
unknown culture. Supported by Al-Shboul et al.
(2013) saying that numerous students still found
difficulty in considering the aspect of cultural
familiarity of foreign language text in the act of
reading although English as a foreign language is
recognized as a universal language. The above
explanations were shown by the mean scores of
unknown vocabularies were 3.36, unfamiliar topic
reached 3.45, and unfamiliar culture got 3.11, see
table 3 below.
Table 3: Sub-factors of text features.
Sources
Items
Mean
Unknown Vocabulary
1,2,3,4,5,6
3.36
Unfamiliar Topic
7,8,9,10
3.45
Unfamiliar Culture
11,12,13,14,15
3.11
The data gained from FLRAS was supported by
the interview session conducted to 5 students which
were selected based the FLRAS result. They were
students who are the most anxious among others as
they got the mean scores above 4 which indicated that
they experienced a high level of reading anxiety. 3 out
of 5 students thought that unfamiliar topic is the
source caused them anxious, it can be seen below:
Students I: “I lost my concentration when I have
to read a text which I don’t know what the text is
about, I only think that I don’t want to read it for
more”.
Students 4: “Before deciding to read, I have to
make sure that the topic is interesting. If it is not, I
will not read it. If I have to, I will not get the point
what I read”.
Students 5: “You know that strange topic always
consists of many strange vocabularies, so I just feel
irritated if the teacher asks me to read it”.
5 PERSONAL FACTORS
Personal factors have been identified as another
source of reading anxiety encountered by students in
EFL learning, this concept was proposed by Al-
Shboul et al. (2013). In the concept of personal
factors, there were two sub-factors divided which
were worry about reading effects and afraid of
making errors. 5 statements of FLRAS (items 16-20)
were associated with afraid of making errors, and 6
statements (items 21-26) referred to worry about
reading effects. The result of this study indicated that
afraid of making errors were more caused students
anxious rather than worry about reading effect. The
mean score of afraid of making errors was 3.23 and
worry about reading effect was 3.04. This means that
their anxieties attached to “afraid of being evaluated
negatively by others” as their performances in reading
are low. This is in line with Miyanaga (2007), saying
that the lack of reading self-confidence was indicated
as a source of foreign language reading anxiety. It is
portrayed in the following table. It highlighted the
mean scores of personal factors in each subfactor.
Table 4: Sub-factors of personal factors.
Sources
Items
M
Afraid of Making
Errors
16,17,18,19,20
3.23
Worry about
Reading Effects
21,22,23,24,25,26
3.04
It was supported by the data collected from 5 students
who were involved in the semi-structured interview
sessions (Table 4). 2 students identified afraid of making
errors distracted their reading performances.
Students 2: “I don’t know what really happened to me,
I have already tried to ignore what other think about me but
I still have a lack of confidence when reading.”
ICSE 2017 - 2nd International Conference on Sociology Education
450

Students 4: “No, I don’t like reading aloud particularly
reading an English text. I mostly do reading in a silent
way.”
According to the transcript of the interview transcribe,
students who have no self-confidence seldom participate in
reading task since they were afraid of making errors.
However, avoidance in reading participation could not be
denied. This condition caused students become anxious in
reading a foreign language. Therefore, the students’
language proficiency and their reading ability showed an
abnormality since their performance in reading decreased.
Correspondingly, a similar study conducted by Liu and
Huang (2011), it examined anxiety among Chinese students
in an oral English classroom. It was found that fear of
making mistakes and being laughed by others were the two
situations causing anxiety
6 CONCLUSION
Based on the above findings, it can be concluded that there
are two potential sources of reading anxiety among
Indonesian students in EFL learning context, those are: text
features and personal factors which are divided into 5
sources, namely: unknown vocabulary, unfamiliar topic,
unfamiliar culture, afraid of making errors, and worry about
reading effect. Among those sources, unfamiliar topic is
considered as the most difficult factors experienced by
students. In other words, anxiety is mostly derived from the
text, however, choosing an appropriate text will be better to
be considered for teachers in teaching reading in order to
decrease the students’ anxiety and increase the students’
interest in reading.
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