Reading-to-Write:A Testing Task For Improving Chinese College English Learners’ Reading And Writing Proficiency

There is an increasing use of reading-to-write tasks for assessing writing proficiency in English to replace traditional impromptu writing-only tasks. Reading-to-write tasks integrate reading with writing. which have several advantages such as their authenticity, reduction of content bias, and positive washback in language teaching and learning. Some studies suggested that the practice of reading-to-write testing tasks could benefit L2learners in their development of comprehensive language skills because of the integration, but evidence is still thin. Thus, this study explored the effect of reading-to-write testing tasks upon Chinese college students’development of English reading and writing proficiency.The subjects were65sophomores majoring in English language and literature, from2parallel classes of Jiaozuo Teachers College.31students from one class formed the experimental group, and34from the other class formed the control group. Whereas the subjects in the control group were asked to do English reading comprehension tasks and English writing tasks separately, the subjects of the experimental group did English reading-to-write testing tasks.The materials used in this study included2English tests used to assess the subjects’ reading and writing proficiency,1questionnaire used to evaluate their use of metacognitive strategies in English reading comprehension,1detailed analytic scoring rubric for foreign language writing, and5pairs of testing tasks.The whole research took10weeks, including3stages:the pre-test and pre-survey given1week ahead of the testing experiment, the testing experiment lasting for8weeks. and the post-test and post-survey given1week after the experiment.The statistic procedure of independent-samples t test was used to compare the2groups of subjects, in terms of their reading proficiency, writing proficiency, and the use of metacognitive strategies in reading comprehension. for both the pre-test and pre-survey and the post-test and post-survey.The results of the experiment showed that the subjects in the experimental group outperformed the subjects in the control group extremely significantly in using metacognitive strategies. especially in their use of monitoring and regulation strategies. The subjects in the experimental group also significantly outperformed those in the control group in reading comprehension, and writing in general. Specifically, in writing, the advantage of the experimental group was obvious only in language accuracy and argumentative justification.The results carry some theoretical and practical implications. Theoretically, the results provide new evidence in favor of the reading-writing connection, supporting the bidirectional hypothesis of the existence of common basic strategies in doing writing and reading tasks. In addition, the results also enrich the understanding of the input and output hypotheses, and L2writing process. Practically, the results provide some evidence for the positive washback effect of reading-to-write testing tasks, encouraging test designers and users to use more this new type of writing test. Finally, for teachers, the results call for an integrated pedagogy of reading and writing.