The Effect of Discourse Markers Instruction on EFL Learners’ Writing

Abstract

Writing is one of the four skills in language learning and it should be paid more attention. In this regard, creating contexts which is value coherence in pragmatic level, and cohesion in semantic level is important. Knowledge about the discourse Markers (DMs), amongst other things, be used to improve writing skill. DMs are expression such as "now, well, so, which signal a sequential relationship between the current basic message and previous discourse. The present paper focuses on the instruction of the DMs and its effect on learners ' writing ability. To do this, two groups as control and experimental were chosen from Shoukoh Iran English Institute in Tabriz, Iran. Both groups were asked to fill the gaps with the best option from among the DMs suggested. Then treatment sessions were conducted for experimental group while during that period, control group held back to receive such a treatment. Analyzing the misuse and inappropriateness of DMs occurring to their writing , pre-test, and investigating the relevant and suitable application of DMs appearing in their writing, post-test, and concludes with the suggestion that teaching text markers to learners should be paid more attention. And also the result reveals the effectiveness of teaching text markers to students in enhancing their awareness and sensitivity of discourse and consequently raising their writing levels.

Impact of Teaching Cohesive Devices on L2 Students’ Language Accuracy in Written Production

“…Organizing sentences of a text is not like putting up bricks one upon another for there are relationships between the sentences. So, in writing a well-organized text, both cohesion and coherence must be carefully considered (Aidinlou, 2012). Beaugrande (1995) also asserts that, in linguistics, a text is a communicative part of a language including seven standards including cohesion as the first standard, which syntactically and lexically, joins the text together to create textual unity.…”

The Effect of Explicit Instruction of Textual Discourse Markers on Saudi EFL Learners’ Reading Comprehension

“…An EFL reader's knowledge of DMs is crucial to his/her reading ability. It is not possible to understand a text without identifying the elements that contribute to the creation of meaning such as DMs (Aidinlou & Shahrokhi, 2012). It is believed that DMs correlate highly with reading comprehension and that they facilitate the EFL reader's understanding by improving his/her reading speed and recall (Khatib & Safari, 2011;Martinez, 2009).…”

Escrita científica em português por hispano falantes: recursos linguísticos-computacionais baseados em métodos de alinhamento de textos paralelos

“…Erros lexicais (Leedham, 2012;Simpson-Vlach e Ellis, 2010;Alonso et al, 2010) têm sido menos tratados que os erros de ortografia e de gramática, embora alguns corretores ortográficos e gramaticais possam detectar alguns erros desse tipo. Erros lexicais têm sido mais estudados do ponto de vista linguístico (Carrió-Pastor e Mestre-Mestre, 2013;Casteele e Collewaert, 2013;Aidinlou e Mehr, 2012;Dayrell e Aluísio, 2008;Fernández, 2005).…”

“…Por isso, é importante que o aprendiz utilize corretamente os marcadores discursivos na língua estrangeira. Marcadores discursivos são itens lexicais externos às orações, na sua maioria invariável, que relacionam os enunciados e desempenham um importante papel na coesão dos textos (Aidinlou e Mehr, 2012;Fernández, 2005). A simples presença dos marcadores nos textos não é, porém, garantia de que o texto seja coerente.…”

“…Aliás, pode ocorrer o contrário: o uso excessivo e desnecessário dos marcadores pode resultar em um texto com problemas de coerência e coesão (Casteele e Collewaert, 2013;Aidinlou e Mehr, 2012;Fernández, 2005). Na literatura foram encontrados estudos (Casteele e Collewaert, 2013;Aidinlou e Mehr, 2012;Jalilifar, 2008) que, por meio de uma análise linguística, compararam como os aprendizes de uma segunda língua e os nativos usam os marcadores discursivos. Em geral, esses estudos fazem análises contrastivas para obter desvios ou inadequações no uso de marcadores discursivos em córpus de aprendizes e em textos produzidos por nativos.…”