Task-Based Writing to Improve Young Teenage Learners’ Reading Skills

Abstract

Following the shift from traditional teacher-fronted towards learner-centered approaches to language teaching, the idea that languages are acquired through authentic acts of communication is now widely accepted as a central tenet of language teaching methodology. As a strong version of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), Task-Based Learning (TBL) lays great emphasis on language use and entails using the English language in order to acquire it. Of the four language skills, it is possibly writing that has had the least attention paid to its role in fostering language acquisition, though some kind of reciprocal interrelationship has been acknowledged between reading and writing. Reporting on a quasi-experimental study, this paper presents an investigation into the impact of task-based writing on young teenage EFL learners' reading skills. It suggests that task-based writing helps such learners make improvements in their skills of reading for gist, specific information, and detailed comprehension to a significantly measurable extent.