ABSTRACT
Reading and writing are both related to text, as reading is the process of deconstructing text and writing is the process of constructing text. Genre pedagogy can work as a bridge to connect the teaching of reading and writing. Considerable work has been done to study genre theory and prove its effectiveness, especially in the field of teaching English. The Reading to Learn pedagogy (Rose & Martin, 2012) has been recognised as a well-designed genre programme from theoretical and pedagogical perspectives. Based on the theories of Systemic Functional Linguistics, pedagogical discourse and scaffolding, the Reading to Learn pedagogy has demonstrated improvement in English learners’ reading and writing competency at an average of two to four times standard growth rates. For further development of genre pedagogy in different languages, there is a need to investigate the effect and feasibility of applying Reading to Learn in teaching languages other than English. Past research in Reading to Learn has mainly focussed on students’ writing outcomes. But students’ reading performance should also be examined, as reading not only provides the model text and language input for writing, but also serves the purpose of creating meaning and delivering different information through the text. This chapter reports on the effectiveness of Reading to Learn in Chinese as second language (CSL) education through case-study research. On reading and writing tests, the study found that Reading to Learn can significantly improve CSL learners’ reading and writing performance of Chinese proposals.
