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The impact of intensive teaching of coherence-creating mechanisms on local and global coherence in English as second language (ESL) expository essays
Author
Lee, Audrey Jiak Peng
Supervisor
Cheung, Yin Ling
Abstract
Coherence has always been viewed as an abstract concept associated with writing quality but hardly paid attention to in classroom teaching and learning. Lautamatti’s (1987) topical structure analysis paved the way and afforded future researchers a system to examine writing coherence by meaningfully examining topics in sentences and how sentences related semantically in a discourse. As such, topical structure analysis, which Connor (1990) considered to be the most influential tool to examine writing coherence, has been used in several studies to examine writing coherence (Hubbard, 1990; Lautamatti, 1987; Schneider & Connor, 1990; Simpson, 2000; Witte, 1983a; Witte, 1983b). At the same time, only a few studies examined the teaching of writing coherence in ESL essays (Chiu, 2004; Connor & Farmer, 1990; Lee, 2002a). Lee’s (2002a) proposed pedagogical framework was refreshing for it had operationalised coherence for teaching purposes and provided a comprehensive and practical teaching guide for teachers. Using topical structure analysis, this small-scale mixed method study examined the impact of an intensive two-hour lesson adapted from Lee’s (2002a) pedagogical framework on ESL students’ writing coherence in expository essays through a one group pre-intervention post-intervention research design. This study aims to not only provide a practical approach to teach writing coherence in Singapore classrooms, but also enrich the theoretical understanding of writing coherence and invigorate the research field in the teaching of writing coherence to secondary school ESL writers. The findings revealed that teaching secondary school ESL writers about writing coherence has empowered them with knowledge about writing coherence. The secondary school ESL writers were able to write locally and globally more coherent expository essays after the intensive intervention lesson on writing coherence.
Date Issued
2016
Call Number
P302.2 Lee
Date Submitted
2016