Academic literacy skills form an important part of the learning of English as a foreign language in education. But how do we actually build these skills? What do reading and writing share? How do readers and writers transact with one another? What do readers and writers learn when reading and writing are connected? This course discusses different theoretical models of communicative competence and their application in foreign language acquisition with a focus on reading and writing. The learning and teaching of these two skills are approached from the vantage point of the interrelationship between first and second language acquisition, and the course covers the cognitive and the social dimensions of reading and writing. Theoretical models of reading and writing processes, as well as empirical studies of these processes and methods in the foreign language classroom will be addressed.