The Relationship Between Speaking and Writing Compositionof the EFL Students at University

This study reports on the relationship between speaking, and writing composition of a group of senior studentsmajoring in TEFL at Masjedsoleiman university. To this end, the objective measures of syntactic maturity areanalyzed in both spoken and written samples of these students. This study indicates a positive relationshipbetween EFL students’ speaking and writing which shows that students with a high proficiency write and speakbetter than those of a low proficiency. Also, this study reveals that high-rated students produce more words,write more T-units, make fewer errors and use more subordinate clauses than low-rated students in both spokenand written samples. These studies provided valuable information for L۱ instructors to facilitate their students’language acquisition. Learning to speak comes before learning to write. In fact, we learn to speak almostautomatically. It is natural. But somebody must teach us to write. For centuries, people have regarded writinga superior to speaking. Because it has a higher status or because in the past almost everybody could speak butonly a few people could write.

Keywords:

Syntactic maturity , T-unit analysis , Mean error-free , T-unit length