A Cognitive Basis And Empirical Evidence For Combining Reading And Writing In Language Tests

Traditional theories and methodologies of foreign language teaching have made great contributions to the worldwide language teaching practice. However, as is pointed out by many linguists, traditional methodologies focus solely on the content and methods of language teaching and learning, while little attention is given to the decisive factor of language learners and their language learning. As one of the remedies, cognitive theory of language learning follows the cognitive law of human being and emphasizes the control of the language in all its manifestations as a coherent and meaningful system, that is, a kind of consciously acquired competence which the learner can then put to use in real-life situations. The theory has proved to be advanced and effective.Traditionally, reading and writing are usually taught and tested separately. According to the cognitive point of view, reading and writing are related, though the connections between them are complex and not readily apparent or clearly understood. This paper is an attempt to show that a good reader is also a good writer since reading and writing are related. The empirical evidence to show this is through a combination of reading and writing in language tests. In language teaching, reading andwriting have been taught together as pedagogical trials, which has proved to have a good effect on both teaching and learning. As is widely accepted that testing is indispensable to teaching, it should be possible and feasible to combine the two in language tests. To prove this is just the objective of this research. The data is obtained from four language tests administered in several middle schools as a research study.The thesis paper consists of six parts. Part one will be concerned with a review of cognitive theory and the related theories in the teaching and learning of EFL, which serves as the theoretical foundation for the argumentation of the whole paper. The gist of cognitive theory, cognitive psychology will be quoted and analysed in this part. Part two will deal with the nature of reading and writing and the connections between them from a cognitive perspective. Part three will present a brief history of language testing. Part four will concern itself with the feasibility and possibility of combing reading and writing in language tests. Part five will offer the test designation concerning reading and writing. And part six is about the analysis of the test results...