THE CONTRIBUTION OF READING COMPREHENSION TO WRITING SKILL DEVELOPMENT Case study of second year students of English at Biskra University

Abstract

The present study aims at exploring the contribution of reading comprehension toenhance learners' writing skill.It investigates the nature of the relationship between reading and writing. Furthermore, it attempts to report the extent to which that relation is supported by both teachers and students. The basic hypothesis in this study sets out that second/foreign language learners can improve their writing skill by readingfrequently on that language. We have opted for a descriptive method for describing two variables: reading comprehension as the independent variable and its contribution in developing learners' writing skill as the dependent variable.In order to gather the data needed we have made a classroom observation for two groups of second year students of English at Mohammed Khider University, Biskra. In addition, we haveadministeredtwo questionnaires; one for the same sample of the observed students and the other for a group of written expression teachers ofthe same population. The results obtained demonstrate the role of reading comprehension in improving learners' writing skill. Based on these results, the research hypothesis was confirmed that students need to read frequently in order to improve their written productions.