Abstract

• The main purpose of this paper is the relationship between anxiety and reading comprehension in English of education degree college students. It was intended to compare the anxiety and reading comprehension in English of education degree college students from Mawlamyine Education Degree College, Yankin Education Degree College, and Thingankyun Education Degree College. This study also aimed to find out the gender differences and education level differences in anxiety and reading comprehension in English of education degree college students. The quantitative approach was used in this study. A total of 300 (150 males and 150 females) first-year and second-year student-teachers participated in this study. The Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) designed by Horwitz et al. (1986) consists of 33 items, the Foreign Language Reading Anxiety Scale (FLRAS) designed by Saito et al, (1999) consists of 20 items, and Reading Comprehension Test item designed by Cynthia Sherwood (n. d.) consists of 6 questions were used in the instruments (the item types were completion, short answer items, multiple-choice item, matching and essay type). Cronbach's alpha for the Inventory of (FLCAS) was 0.758. Cronbach's alpha for the Inventory of (FLRAS) was 0.751. In this study, no significant difference was found in language anxiety and reading anxiety by gender and education level. Anxiety and reading comprehension in English were significantly correlated at the 0.01 level. These results suggested that students with language anxiety tend to have reading anxiety. Decreasing students’ anxiety and creating a low-anxiety classroom environment might help improve students’ reading comprehension. Since reading anxiety seems to be a more stable construct as compared to language anxiety, coping with reading anxiety may require more time.