A Correlational Study Of EFL Reading And Writing

As two of the most important abilities of language competence, reading and writing remain two domains in which researchers of many fields show great interest. Though it is widely accepted that reading and writing are related processes, to what extent they are correlated remains controversial. Some researchers claim that reading and writing are highly correlated, reading skills can serve as the predictive factor for writing proficiency, and vice versa; while others argue that reading and writing are not directly and closely related; there is a low correlation between them, people who read well do not necessarily write well. In the field of testing, based on the different understandings of the reading and writing relationship, people also hold different views on the feasibility of using one test (reading or writing) to test test takers' two proficiencies (both reading and writing). Furthermore, to the best of the author's knowledge, few studies have been conducted to detect the factors influencing reading and writing relationship, especially in China.Taking the above controversies and research gap into consideration, the present study was undertaken to explore the relationship between reading and writing and the factors influencing the relationship. The research questions to be addressed in this study are as follows: 1) Is there a significant correlation between EFL reading and writing? To what extent they are correlated? 2) What are the factors influencing the correlation between reading and writing? 3) What implications could be drawn from the findings of this study for EFL teaching, learning and testing of reading and writing of Chinese learners of English?5822 non-English majors from Shandong University participated in this study and two achievement tests designed by the Center for College English Education of Shandong University were employed to test subjects' listening, reading, lexical knowledge, writing and EFL achievement. The research data used for this study were collected by the Center for College English Education of Shandong University. After the procedure of data collection, the research data were formatted and later exported to SPSS 13.0. Descriptive statistics, correlations (bivariate and partial), one-way ANOVA and t-test were performed to detect the reading and writing correlation and the factors influencing the correlation.The major findings of this study are as follows: 1) Though reading and writing are significantly correlated, the correlation is quite low. Reading skills could not be a predictive factor for writing proficiency, and vice versa. 2) Lexical knowledge, listening, reading and writing proficiency serve as factors influencing reading and writing relationship. The more proficient EFL learners are in lexical knowledge, listening, reading and writing, the lower the correlation between reading and writing tend to be. 3) Gender also has an impact on reading and writing relationship; the correlation between reading and writing is higher in male EFL learners than female onesThe findings of the present study lead to three practical implications in relation to EFL teaching, learning and testing of reading and writing in Chinese context: 1) paying equal attention to EFL reading and writing instructions in the practice of teaching; 2) using different learning strategies at different levels of reading and writing proficiencies to promote EFL learning efficiency; 3) paying more attention to testing writing in the field of testing.The theoretical significance of this study lies in that the findings of this study could be helpful for clarifying the controversial issue concerning reading and writing relationship. It would be of practical value by providing implications for EFL teaching, learning and testing of reading and writing. Practically, the study would be also significant for its exploration on the feasibility of using reading score of TOEIC to predict test takers' writing proficiency.Due to various limitations, the findings of the present study should be considered tentative and interpreted with caution. Further studies are needed for a clearer picture of the reading and writing relationship.