This article reminded me of my teaching philosophy. "If we teach our students to read for meaning - to interpret and appreciate literary texts - the meaning of meaning most useful to us is that it is a means: speaking and writing, listening and reading all..."
Reading, writing, listening and speaking are all important to language acquisition regardless if you are a native speaker or not. Being a language learner in your native language is never ending. There is always room to grow and gain new skills. As far as a writing classroom is concerned, it can be useful by incorporating readings that will force the student to "look and look again" and this will "teach critical reading and critical thinking." If students are asked to keep notebooks or journals on their readings, they can interact with the readings as they please. Using this to guide classroom discussions promotes the use of language skill and fluency in discussing the actual topics.
In my linguistics courses, we are taught to account for each aspect of communication (including gestural) and applying this same idea into a writing class helps with overall fluency.
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