The Effects of Explicit Instruction of Grammatical Cohesive Devices on Intermediate Iranian Learners' Writing

Abstract

Cohesive devices are necessary elements in writing since they link different clauses, sentences and paragraphs to make the thread of meaning the writer is trying to communicate obvious. These devices seem to be problematic for English language learners so this study aimed at investigating the effectiveness of explicit teaching of cohesive devices on Iranian EFL learners’ use of these features and the extent to which it can improve the learners’ writing quality. For this purpose from among 86 intermediate two homogenous groups were formed. The experimental group had the advantage of attending a course on grammatical cohesive devices and a pretest and a post test were administered at the beginning and at the end of the course. By comparing the results of the tests it was found that the instruction could promote the learners' use of cohesive devices, it could help the learners develop more cohesive writings but the learners’ writing quality didn’t improve by the instruction.