A Study Of Integration Of Reading With Writing In English Teaching In Secondary Vocational School

English writing is considered as one of the four basic skills in English learning. As one of the essential language skills, writing is playing a vital role in English teaching. However, for quite a long time, writing teaching and learning has been perplexing English teachers and students. Owing to various reasons, quite a few students are passive to learn writing. So the emphasis should be put on the improvement of students'English writing ability. As to these problems, one possible and feasible solution is to increase their practice of English, especially writing.Krashen's Input Hypothesis emphasizes that comprehensible input plays a part in language acquisition/learning, but devalues the function of output in language learning, while according to Swain, output may serve as an effective way of enhancing fluency, causing noticing, testing hypothesis and developing metalinguistic knowledge. The combination of input and output may be an effective means in language learning and teaching. Input guarantees learning and output reinforces learning and makes learning more effective. Therefore, we assume that both input and output are important and indispensable in language acquisition/learning, and the integration of comprehensible input and comprehensible output may be a more effective approach in language learning and teaching.The present study, taking Krashen's Input Hypothesis and Swain's Output Hypothesis as its theoretical bases, by means of empirical study, researched FL writing teaching from a new perspective, attempting to test whether the integrating of output-based writing with the teaching of input-based reading can effectively improve FL learners'writing competence.In order to verify the effect of this approach, the author carried out the experiment study in two classes of Linyi Secondary vocational school in Shandong province. One was established to be the experimental class and adopted the integration of reading with writing to carry out writing teaching; the other was established to be the control class and adopted the traditional approach to carry out writing teaching. The findings of the study demonstrate that the integrated approach to English writing is an effective way in improving English learners'writing competence. The thesis is made up of five chapters except introduction and conclusion. And it is organized in the following ways.Introduction presents us the current situation of English writing in secondary vocational school. Then it lists close relationship between reading and writing and it is necessary to integrate reading with writing under teacher's guidance to develop students'writing competence.Chapter one offers us a general survey of current situation of English writing in China and abroad. There have been four major instructional approaches to ESL/EFL writing since 1945: the product-focused approach, the process approach, the genre approach and the process-genre approach. Product-focused approach used to hold a dominant position in FL teaching in China. It also reviews the results of the studies made previously on the integration of reading with writing home and abroad. The combination of reading and writing in FL teaching in China has just begun.Chapter two provides the theoretical background for the study by elaborating the essential theories relevant to English reading and writing. Krashen's Comprehensible Input Hypothesis and Swain's Comprehensible Output Hypothesis elaborate the feasibility of combining reading and writing, which construct a theoretical frame for the study.Chapter three elaborates the experiment itself, mainly including the hypothesis of the present study, the experimental instrument, and the procedures of the experiments. The purpose of the experiment is to test whether the integration of reading with writing is effective in teaching writing and whether it is better than the traditional method. The whole experiment lasted 20 weeks of one semester: the first week for pretest, 18 weeks for writing training, and the last week for questionnaire and posttest. In a word, the study involved pretest, writing training, posttest and a questionnaire.Chapter four reports the results of the study in detail. The data of the experiment came from two tests and one questionnaire with the subjects in the experimental class, and all the data was entered into SPSS 13.0 software package to do statistics. In order to compare the different effects of the two writing approaches, the data was analyzed with the following statistical procedure: descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviation), then z-test and correlation. The results were reported in table form. It was respected that such an analysis will help to find out whether English writing competence can be improved by integrating reading with writing.Chapter five draws the findings and implications, which show that the integrated approach is effective and significant in improving students'writing competence. The implications on the English writing teaching from the findings included the following points.First, learning to write from teaching can make students acquire writing skills. The teacher should devote most of his energy to teaching students how to learn, encourage them to practice writing. Only engaging in the composing experience itself, can students learn the writing skills.Second, arousing students'motivation and confidence on writing is an important factor in guiding writing. Guided composition is the main teaching method, which needs the teacher paraphrase the text carefully. In this situation the teacher is an expert imparting knowledge to novice. The teacher has the responsibility of helping students get their ideas together. They must provide their students with sufficient input.Third, making full use of the textbook is helpful for writing. We can use students'textbook as a source for writing development. The teacher should analyze the model texts in order to raise awareness of how they are structured. Teachers'guidance should focus on key words and topic sentences in reading, so under such guidance, students should learn sentence patterns and expressions in reading and apply them in writing learning.Fourth, reforming the criteria of grading writing is put forward. The teacher should keep a balance between the content and the accuracy of a piece of writing when teaching and evaluating writing. The purpose of writing is to communicate.Content is the most important in writing. Teachers should try to encourage students to express their own ideas in writing and overcome negative feelings toward writing. Fifth, brainstorming is used to generate ideas for writing. When one is brainstorming, one is actually listing everything that related to the topic. So brainstorming will give opportunities to develop a very well developed essay.Conclusion concludes its limitation and the recommendation for future research. To sum up, only by continuous research and practice can we improve this approach to help students to develop their writing skills and improve their writing ability.