Reading-Writing Connections

While reading Hirvela's book on reading-writing connections, the flashback of my undergraduate classes came to mind. I had taken classes such as Listening and Speaking I and II, while Reading and Writing courses are taught seperately. However, I think that reading and writing are inter-related skills that students need to acquire if they want to be successful in their academic lives.

In the chapters, Hirvela discusses the connections between reading and writing skills in students' first language that might enhance learning in L2. Personally, I read widely (mostly novels) in both Thai (L1) and English (L2). This is because I did my BA in an international college where English is used as a mode of instruction. I feel comfortable composing in English because I have been trained and educated in that contexts. I have never written any academic papers in Thai, though I read some of them. Even now, I still think that I might not be albe to compose any Thai academic paper because I do not know formal written form in Thai language. I was also discouraged when I wrote in Thai because that person gave me this comment when reading my Thai composition:

A: Have you educated abroad?
B: No, I answered.
A: Because your Thai structure has lots of "milk and butter" in it. (I think that person might mean that my written Thai employs English structure, word order, sound informal, etc. Since I did not ask what it meant to that person by that phrase, I never know what it meant as well.)

As a language teacher, I always tell my students that if they want to be writers, they need to read a lot. I personally think that reading and writing skills are connected. This might also reflect on how I create my own reading and writing skills. Many colleagues ask me questions: "How many hours do I spend in reading?" "How many pages approximately do I read each day?" I think these are interesting questions because I have never thought about those questions before. However, I always tell people that whenever I write, I usually read until I think that I have something to think and write about. Then the act of writing begins. This is where the notion of by Bloome's and Hirvela's reading and writing as social process means. I interact and interpret meanings of texts. I create meaning among texts while reading and recreate meaning texts while writing.

I also think that Hirvela's approach in teaching reading is meaningful because his approach did not focus on the texts itself, but on the meta-awareness of students' reading skills. It can also give teachers some literacy backgrounds of students, how they learn, interact, and interpret texts from their perspectives.