A Study Of The Integration Of Reading And Writing In English Teaching In Middle School

English reading and writing are two of the four essential skills of English learning for EFL learners.They are related and facilitative to each other.Reading is the preparation for writing and writing could promote reading.However,current English reading and writing teaching are still separated in Junior middle school in China.In current English teaching,the present researcher has found that English writing is the most difficult part for junior middle school students,who usually don't know what to and how to write when facing their writing tasks.Meanwhile,English teachers in junior middle school in China often feel puzzled about how to teach English writing.To solve the English writing learning and teaching problems in junior middle school,the present researcher in this case study examines whether the integration of teaching reading and writing can reduce junior school students' English writing anxiety and improve their writing ability.The study is based on the theories of Krashen's Input Hypothesis,Swain's Output Hypothesis,Krashen's Affective Filter Hypothesis,Tobias's Three-stage Model,as well as Scaffolding Theory.After reading the relevant literature,the researcher tries to improve the junior middle school students' writing ability by integrating teaching of English writing into English reading,attempting to examine the effectiveness of the integration of reading and writing through the case study and find out more effective methods to improve the junior middle school students' writing ability.Moreover,the researcher puts forward some suggestions to English teachers regarding the methods of integrating teaching of English reading and writing in real class situations.The present researcher carried out the empirical study by making comparisons between the experimental class with the controlled class.The participants are 81 students from the two classes of Grade Eight from a junior middle school.The two classes were taught by the same researcher.Questionnaires were employed before and after the experiment to investigate the general situation of junior middle school students' English writing anxiety.The data of the pre-test and post-test of English writing was collected to analyze the changes in the participants' writing ability.An interview was carried out in the end of the experiment,which intends to find out the participants' views and feedback on the integration of teaching reading and writing.Based on the results and discussions of the case study,the researcher has come up with the two main findings.Firstly,there are significant differences in somatic anxiety,avoidance behavior and cognitive anxiety among the participants in the experimental class before and after the experiment.It shows that English writing anxiety of the students in the experimental class is obviously lower than that before the experiment after 12 weeks'teaching experiment,and the participants have become more interested and confident in English writing.Secondly,the average score of the post-test composition in the experimental class is 14.2375,while that of the controlled class is 11.5122,indicating significant differences between the two classes in English writing.Obviously,the integration of teaching reading and writing improves the junior middle school students'writing ability,especially in the areas of content,language and discourse structure.Through the integration of reading and writing,the students are encouraged by the teacher to learn to observe,experience life and learn to express their feelings,which could lay a solid foundation for the content of their English writing.At the same time,teachers set up appropriate scaffolds for students and guide them to pay attention to the use of language in the reading text,especially regarding English vocabulary,sentence patterns and grammatical structures.In addition,the teacher provides the analysis of the discourse structure and the topic development in the process of teaching.The implications of the study are as follows:The traditional separated teaching state of reading and writing needs to be changed and English writing should be carried out both in and outside class.Teachers could use scaffolding instruction to improve the effectiveness of teaching writing and guide students to learn to improve their writing through peer collaborations.Last but not the least,timely and efficient post-writing evaluation and feedback should not be neglected.