Teaching writing through reading:

The aim of this article is to establish the relevance of teaching reading and writing skills to students at Madrid Polytechnic University, and to show the relationship and interdependence of these activities in EAP courses. The skills involved in reading and writing processes for academic purposes for L2 students are compared and commented on from a rhetorical point of view. Learning tasks based on text-type analysis are recommended as adequate activities to build schemata for writing and represent a synthesis of the teaching objectives proposed for reading and writing English courses. The need for literacy in English The relevance of English as an international language continues to increase as more and more people are being required to express themselves in English, especially within the scientific community. Access to much scientific and technical literature is becoming increasingly difficult for those with no knowledge of English; moreover, the growth of business and occupational mobility among countries of the European Community is resulting in a need for the English language as a common medium of communication. Furthermore, as electronic communications affect language changing the way it is used and creating a need for a ‘global’ language, English is being chosen to fulfil that purpose. As it is often said, in short, people will have two languages, one for everyday use, the other for communicating with the formal world: that language will be English. All these demands and requirements have fostered the expansion of one particular aspect of language teaching, namely, the teaching of Academic and Professional English. Students enrolled in Academic Writing courses at university have usually completed one or more ‘general’ courses of English and need to further their knowledge for academic purposes or for particular reasons connected with their research or their jobs. These students, in contrast to their formal school learning experience, are well aware of their purpose in learning the language; consequently, ESP teachers design courses based on the study of their academic needs. The language taught is usually based in particular disciplines at higher levels of education when the student is either about to obtain a degree or undergoing postgraduate studies; therefore, he is already specialising in a particular field