The presentstudy was an elaboration on the effect of foreign language anxiety on reading comprehension achievement of Iranian EFL learners. The participants comprised 100 BA students, doing General English Course in different academic fields at Islamic University of Neyshabur. The participants took a reading proficiency test of TOEFL and answered a likert scale reading anxiety questionnaire, derived from Sarson's (1975) anxiety scale. The collected data were subjected to a set of parametric statistical analyses, including descriptive and inferential statistics such as one-way analysis of variance and post hoc tests. The findings presented significant differences among the participants at different reading ability levels. The students at the high and intermediate reading levelsdiffered significantly from the students at the low reading level in reading anxiety. To put it simply, there is a negative relationship between the students' reading level and reading anxiety. The findings are of significance for language teachers as well as curriculum planners to reduce the affective filters and debilitating factors in language-learning environment to improve language learners' reading ability. One important way to reduce reading anxiety is to expose language learners to comprehensible reading sources and culturally familiar texts, which develop learners' feeling of reassurance and self-confidence.

This study explored the probable interaction between Iranian language students' beliefs about language learning and their socioeconomic status. To this end, 350 postgraduate students, doing English courses at Islamic Azad University of Neyshabur participated in this study. They were grouped in terms of their socioeconomic status. They answered a questionnaire in which they indicated their beliefs about language learning in different contexts of language use. The quantitative data were subjected to a set of parametric statistical analyses, including descriptive statistics. The findings manifested a positive relationship between the participants' economic status and their beliefs about language learning. The findings reflected that social factors exert substantial influence on the process of language learning and language teachers should be highly qualified to make professional judgment about the actual language ability of language learners to decrease error of measurement. Language teachers should also create pleasant learning environment fostering learners' positive attitude toward language learning.

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The aim of the present study was to find out whether language learners' self-efficacy beliefs affect the reading comprehension achievement of EFL learners in Iran. A convenience sample of 120 learners from different language schools participated in this study. A self-efficacy questionnaire was adopted to analyze students' self-efficacy beliefs. To measure their reading comprehension, the reading part of Michigan Test, as a test of English language proficiency was adopted and given to the participants. The Pearson product-moment formula demonstrated that there was a significant relation between self-efficacy and reading comprehension, and the correlation between self-efficacy and reading comprehension was positive. Therefore, it might be postulated that the higher self-efficacious the learners are, the better they answer the reading comprehension questions. The results of the statistical analysis also led the researcher to conclude that the relation between language learners' self-efficacy beliefs is not affected by gender.