HOW TO DEVELOP WRITING SKILLS IN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE?

Autors/ores

  • Tamara Oshchepkova Dr., American University of the Middle East, Kuwait
  • Ali Ata Alkhaldi Dr., American University of the Middle East, Kuwait

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.46827/ejfl.v0i0.220

Paraules clau:

foreign language teaching, developing writing skills development, reading passages, integration

Resum

Writing is potentially to be the most difficult skill for Foreign Language (FL) learners to master (Nunan 1999). It motivates thinking, that is, it can help learners to organise their ideas, and develop their critical thinking skills to summarise, analyse, and criticize (Rao, 2007). In this paper, the authors analyze the role of reading in the process of developing writing skills. Literature review shows that there is a close interconnection between the two skills. The relationship has been discussed since a long time, and the beneficial mutual influence of the two skills has been revealed. These interrelations between reading and writing are significant to understand in order to develop these skills effectively. The authors then analyse how a reading passage can be exploited to boost writing skills. In particular, reading passage can be used as a model, as a source of ideas, as a sample of language use, which eventually advances writing skills. Finally, the authors studied several coursebooks to find out how reading is used in the process of teaching writing. Observations and recommendations are shared at the end of the article. Namely, the authors confirmed that the idea of integration is widely exploited by the textbook writers. Moreover, every single reading passage is looked at from different perspectives and is used for several purposes.

 

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Biografies de l'autor/a

  • Tamara Oshchepkova, Dr., American University of the Middle East, Kuwait

    Dr. Tamara Oshchepkova graduated from Omsk State Pedagogical University (Russia) and received her PhD from Omsk State Technical University (Russia). She worked as the Head of the Department of English at the Faculty of Informatics at Omsk State Pedagogical University. In 2007, she was granted the academic rank of an Associate Professor which is confirmed by the Certificate issued by the Federal Education and Science Supervisory Board. She was the head of the non-governmental organization Omsk English Language Teachers Association. Since 2015, she has been working at the American University of the Middle East (Kuwait) as an Assistant Professor teaching such English courses as “English for Academic Studies”, “First Year Composition”, and “English Composition”. She is the co-author of the textbook “English for Academics” published by Cambridge University Press. Her research interests are: linguistics, terminology, effective techniques of foreign language teaching.

  • Ali Ata Alkhaldi, Dr., American University of the Middle East, Kuwait

    Dr. Ali Ata Al Khaldi has a PhD in the field of applied linguistics from the United Kingdom. He was a team leader and a senior lecturer of English in Abu Dhabi, UAE. He is currently employed as an Assistant Professor at the American University of the Middle East, Kuwait. He teaches English courses such as “English for Academic Studies”, “First-Year Composition”, “English Composition”, and “Fundamentals of Speech Communication”. He also has experience in teaching English for specific purposes such as “English for Engineering”, “English for ICT”, “English for Oil and Gas”, and “English for Aviation”. He delivered presentations at many local and international conferences. Furthermore, he has publications in international journals, and he participated in an international research project funded by the British Council in 2012-2013. His main research interests are Materials Development, Second Language Acquisition Research, TESOL, ESP, and SL theories.

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Descàrregues

Publicat

2018-11-28

Número

Vol 3, No 4 (2018)

Secció

Articles

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