A Study on EFL College Students’ Reading and Integrated Writing Ability and Their Reading Strategy Use

This research is an investigation of the relationship between reading ability and integrated writing ability of EFL Korean university students and the differences in the use of reading strategies between upper level readers and lower level readers. The research was conducted in college academic writing classes where participants (n= 50) had to write an argumentative essay based on the reading material. One standardized test, one cloze reading comprehension test developed by the researcher, a perceived reading strategy use questionnaire, and an integrated essay were used as the instruments of measurement. A strong correlation between reading and writing ability was shown in the result of the analysis (r (df) = .709, p < .01). In regard to the reading strategy uses between upper and lower level participants through the survey questionnaire, the independent samples t-test results indicated that participants showed statistically significant difference in mining strategy use (p = .042, p < .05), while in other categories of reading strategies, no statistically significant differences between two groups were found. The study results show different features of reading strategy use involved in the reading-to-write task and provide us with some pedagogical implications in EFL writing instructions.