A Preliminary Assessment of Facilitating Anxiety in Second Language Reading

Facilitating anxiety in second language (L2) learning research has not been thoroughly discussed for both methodological and conceptual reasons. This trend is also evident in the field of L2 reading, where reading anxiety has been viewed as a negative force. This study takes the initial step to explore the nature of facilitating anxiety in L2 reading. The behavior of facilitating anxiety measured by a domain-general measure is examined in relation to various L2-reading-specific variables, and the necessity of a new skillspecific measure for facilitating anxiety is discussed. Based on the results of partial correlation and stepwise regression analyses, this study proposes that incorporating a new skill-specific measure for facilitating anxiety could assist future research in gaining a better understanding of the role of anxiety in L2 reading and reading practice.