IMPROVING ESSAY WRITING FOR ENGLISH MAJORS THROUGH AN INTEGRATED INSTRUCTION

The assessment of academic writing classes revealed that students’ writing skills remained below the expected standard, demonstrating that essay writing remains a challenging skill for university students. This study explores the impact of integrating reading and writing, alongside the use of a reading checklist to assist students throughout the writing process. This research identified methods of reading that may enhance writing skills and formulated them into a reading checklist. Sixty English-majored seniors participated in the study, divided into two groups that read texts with and without the checklist. Data were collected via a pretest and posttest of essay writing, along with an in-depth interview. The findings indicate that the integration of reading and writing yields beneficial outcomes, and that the checklist facilitates students in effectively combining these processes. The most notable findings are (1) significant improvements in the post-test result of experimental group; (2) students’ confidence in the checklist's ability to enhance their essay writing skills, and (3) a report on students’ positive experience with the integration.