Nowadays, communication between different nations and cultures increases dramatically. English, as an international language, is becoming more and more important and is used more and more widely in senior high school students’ daily life as Liu Ye concludes that English as a foreign language has becoming a sure across to information of all sorts and an indispensable means of international communication. As a result, English learning fever sweeps through China in those years. Particularly, students in senior high schools are trying every effort to improve their English competence because they know that English is not only a compulsory course in University Entrance Examination but also a tool in future career.
According to the New English Curriculum Standards for senior high schools, listening, speaking, reading and writing are four basic skills and requirements for the students. Reaching and writing are the most important skills for students in senior high schools. Just as Xiong Jie points out that both reading and writing are powerful and highly inpidual tools for thinking, learning and discovering and both perform the function of communication. Liu ye also says :“with the shift from the ability of manipulating the linguistic structure to the ability of using the language to communicate in written/spoken forms in English, EFL writing was considered as a tool for people to communicate in a real situation.” That is to say, EFL writing is vital to their inpidual development. As a matter of fact, EFL writing has been applied more and more in senior high school students’ English study and future career. For instance, senior high school students need to write compositions in exams, to communicate or exchange information with friends whose native language is English for several years in primary and middle schools. Many students still do a very poor job in applying English to express their ideas, thoughts, feelings, etc. In EFL writing, some are even not able to produce a single correct sentence in EFL writing. Senior high school students may share a same feeling that senior school students actually have something to write and want to write, but senior high school students’ just cannot express it correctly and appropriately in English.
To change that the poor performance in EFL writing and improve their writing ability, senior high school students’ are highly recommended to integrate writing with reading. Reading-to-writing approach advocates applying what senior high school students have learned in the reading materials to write. It can effectively enlarge the amount of vocabulary in the process of reading and senior high school students’ will find that the EFL writing in their examinations is no more than a piece of cake. In this way, senior high school students can improve their EFL writing ability effectively and efficiently.
II. The Nature of Reading and Writing
Reading and writing are different in nature Senior high school students often get an idea that reading and writing are two different language skills because reading is a receptive activity while writing is a productive activity. Chen Liping also thinks that reading and writing are two comparatively independent skills. While reading, senior high school students only focus on understanding the printed words written by writers. On the contrary, senior high school students must put students ideas into printed words in writing. Reading is actually a process of output, in which the writers present their ideas, thought, and understanding by the language knowledge that they had learned or acquired. In summary, reading is a receptive activity-a process of input while writing is a productive activity-a process of output.
2.1 The Nature of Reading -to-Writing Approach
To illustrate the effectiveness of reading-to-writing approach, senior high school students should firstly make clear about what reading is and what writing is. This section attempts to illustrate the nature of reading and writing. 高中生英语写作能力培养策略研究(2):http://www.youerw.com/yingyu/lunwen_6951.html