Journal of English Language Teaching

Mismatches in the Contents of Reading and Writing Tasks: Revisiting Schema Theory

P. Bhaskaran Nair

(Formerly) Professor of English, Pondicherry University.

Keywords: Reading and writing tasks, Schema theory in reading and writing, controlled writing and scaffolding

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Abstract

In writing in a second language, learners encounter two problems: generating content and finding adequate linguistic means of presenting the content. If the former is taken care of by the teacher-text duo, will the learner be able to help himself by using the necessary language structures with the appropriate vocabulary? This article tries to answer this question by proposing a suggestion for a reading-writing class. This proposal has its springboard in controlled writing, as it has been known in traditional writing instruction. Then, it proceeds to use the pedagogic principle of scaffolding so that the learner develops some degree of autonomy in writing.

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