Developing Coherence and Cohesion in ESL Students’ Writing (Primary)
By Lee Kay Hoon, Ella
I remembered how much I hated writing compositions during my primary school days. As an English as Second Language (ESL) learner, I never did well and could not understand why my compositions never made it to the class noticeboard, except for the sea of red ink written all over my essay. Feedback given by my teacher then made me even more demotivated to write. She once wrote: “Your composition does not make any sense. See Me!” I did not and she never asked for me again. After that incident, I resorted to learning good essays by rote - topics back then were very predictable - and regurgitated it during tests. Thank goodness I made it through my Primary School Leaving Examinations (English) and got promoted to secondary school. The rest was history.
Having learnt the various aspects of Second Language Academic Writing, I have no doubt that teachers play a very significant role in helping their students write effective essays that are logical, connected and can flow without digression. According to Connor 1990 and Connor and Johns 1990 cited in Lee, 2002a, coherence is “crucial to effective writing” although it is a difficult concept to teach and learn. In addition, there is enough research to show that when ESL students write, they concentrate on words at sentence levels instead of the meaning of the whole text (Bamberg 1984 and Ferris and Hedgecock 1998 cited in Lee, 2002).
As I read and learn more about academic writing and the importance of coherence, I begin to realise that a pedagogical shift is necessary to focus students’attention from sentence-level grammar to discourse features at the macro-level of the text. It will benefit them (academically) through their secondary, college and university years. Our primary schools are currently using the genre-process approach that focuses “on the teaching of particular genres students need for later social communicative success” (Paltridge, 2004) to teach writing. All the more schools should focus on developing students’ understanding about coherence and discourse unity in their writing.
What makes a text coherent?
According to Lee, I. (2002a), teachers must have an implicit understanding of text coherence before teaching it. In a narrow
sense, it is firstly, “connectedness between sentences” as mentioned by McCrimmon 1980 cited in Lee, 2002a. Secondly, it is the use of cohesive devices in the various paragraphs (according to Bander 1983, Dodds 2000 and Lauer et al. 1985 cited in Lee, 2002a) and thirdly, “the use of connective devices such as pronouns, repetitive structures and transitional markers” as mentioned by Hodges & Whitten 1982 cited in Lee, 2002a. However, coherence is more than just that. It has the following features for consideration:
1. The macrostructure of different text-types. Understanding the communicative purpose, audience and context of each and what it entails helps the Readers understand the meaning of the text. The primary syllabus focuses on narratives and personal recounts for fiction, including factual recounts, information reports, procedures/instructions, expositions and explanations for non-fiction. The purpose of each would also determine the structure for Writers. If the purpose of the Writer is to narrate a story, then the events ought to be arranged in paragraphs according to a chronological or sequential order.
2. The organisation of information usually complies with the principle of the Writer “giving the old information before the new” (Lee, I. (2002a)). In developing paragraphs, the Writer should begin with a topic sentence that will guide the Readers to understand the text and contribute further to the development of that paragraph.
3. Connectedness of content with topic (development) simply means that for every sentence made, it has to be supported or elaborated so that coherence can be achieved. It does not make sense for the Writer to state a proposition without reason or support. According to Kintsch & van Dijk 1978 cited in Lee, 2002b, that would make the discourse theme generally disorganised.
4. Use of cohesive devices to show references and lexical relations. Relevant and suitable cohesive devices should be introduced in the text to help establish relationship and meaning between sentences and different parts of a sentence. As mentioned by Halliday and Hasan 1976, cited in Lee 2002a, some examples that are relevant to the primary school context would be the use of referencing pronouns, determiners, subordinating and coordinating conjunctions, repetitions and words that show hyponymy or synonymy relations.
5. Use of appropriate meta-discourse markers like connectives such as ‘therefore’, ‘but’; sequencers such as ‘finally’, certainty markers like‘without a doubt’ and hedges such as ‘may’ when used correctly are most effective in that they help the Readers see the logical connections between paragraphs, interpret and evaluate the Writer’s information.
As I teach mostly in the upper primary level, I would propose to incorporate a 2-hour writing workshop on the Importance
of Coherence in Writing into my scheme of work. The workshop would highlight the above-mentioned (macro-elements) features with activities to engage and help my young audience understand certain terms and concepts.
Before the commencement of the workshop, I would conduct a simple students’ needs analysis, incorporating relevant aspects of target situation analysis and learning situation analysis as suggested by Robinson (1989, 1999 as cited in Paltridge et al, 2009). This is crucial information so that I could incorporate and tailor my writing lessons to teach explicitly the micro-elements of writing like cohesive devices and meta-discourse using student hand-outs, awareness-raising tasks and follow-up with writing practices after the workshop.
I am encouraged to explore the above possibility with my own students when I get back to school. As a practitioner for the last 2.5 decades, I never saw the need to set aside curriculum time to teach this aspect of writing. In retrospect, I was perhaps too overwhelmed with covering the syllabus and too caught up with producing results. According to Lee, I. (2002b), student awareness of how to write effectively will lead to improved coherence in their writing as they learn to be more attentive to their discourse level when revising their text.
References
Hyland, K. (2007). Genre pedagogy: language, literacy and L2 writing instruction. Journal of Second Language Writing. 16 (3): 148-164.
Lee, I. (2002a). Helping students develop coherence in writing. English Teaching Forum. 40 (3): 32-39
Lee, I. (2002b). Teaching coherence to ESL students: a classroom inquiry. Journal of Second Language Writing. 11 (2): 135-159.
Paltridge, B. (2004). Approaches to Teaching Second Language Writing at
http://www.englishaustralia.com.au/ea_conference04/proceedings/pdf/Paltridge.pdf
Paltridge, B., Harbon, L., Hirsch, D., Shen, H., Stevenson, M., Phakiti, A., et al. (2009). Teaching academic writing: An introduction for teachers of second language writers. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.
Wong, Y.L. (2010). Teaching text types in the Singapore primary classroom.Pearson Education. South Asia Pte Ltd.
By Lee Kay Hoon, Ella
I remembered how much I hated writing compositions during my primary school days. As an English as Second Language (ESL) learner, I never did well and could not understand why my compositions never made it to the class noticeboard, except for the sea of red ink written all over my essay. Feedback given by my teacher then made me even more demotivated to write. She once wrote: “Your composition does not make any sense. See Me!” I did not and she never asked for me again. After that incident, I resorted to learning good essays by rote - topics back then were very predictable - and regurgitated it during tests. Thank goodness I made it through my Primary School Leaving Examinations (English) and got promoted to secondary school. The rest was history.
Having learnt the various aspects of Second Language Academic Writing, I have no doubt that teachers play a very significant role in helping their students write effective essays that are logical, connected and can flow without digression. According to Connor 1990 and Connor and Johns 1990 cited in Lee, 2002a, coherence is “crucial to effective writing” although it is a difficult concept to teach and learn. In addition, there is enough research to show that when ESL students write, they concentrate on words at sentence levels instead of the meaning of the whole text (Bamberg 1984 and Ferris and Hedgecock 1998 cited in Lee, 2002).
As I read and learn more about academic writing and the importance of coherence, I begin to realise that a pedagogical shift is necessary to focus students’attention from sentence-level grammar to discourse features at the macro-level of the text. It will benefit them (academically) through their secondary, college and university years. Our primary schools are currently using the genre-process approach that focuses “on the teaching of particular genres students need for later social communicative success” (Paltridge, 2004) to teach writing. All the more schools should focus on developing students’ understanding about coherence and discourse unity in their writing.
What makes a text coherent?
According to Lee, I. (2002a), teachers must have an implicit understanding of text coherence before teaching it. In a narrow
sense, it is firstly, “connectedness between sentences” as mentioned by McCrimmon 1980 cited in Lee, 2002a. Secondly, it is the use of cohesive devices in the various paragraphs (according to Bander 1983, Dodds 2000 and Lauer et al. 1985 cited in Lee, 2002a) and thirdly, “the use of connective devices such as pronouns, repetitive structures and transitional markers” as mentioned by Hodges & Whitten 1982 cited in Lee, 2002a. However, coherence is more than just that. It has the following features for consideration:
1. The macrostructure of different text-types. Understanding the communicative purpose, audience and context of each and what it entails helps the Readers understand the meaning of the text. The primary syllabus focuses on narratives and personal recounts for fiction, including factual recounts, information reports, procedures/instructions, expositions and explanations for non-fiction. The purpose of each would also determine the structure for Writers. If the purpose of the Writer is to narrate a story, then the events ought to be arranged in paragraphs according to a chronological or sequential order.
2. The organisation of information usually complies with the principle of the Writer “giving the old information before the new” (Lee, I. (2002a)). In developing paragraphs, the Writer should begin with a topic sentence that will guide the Readers to understand the text and contribute further to the development of that paragraph.
3. Connectedness of content with topic (development) simply means that for every sentence made, it has to be supported or elaborated so that coherence can be achieved. It does not make sense for the Writer to state a proposition without reason or support. According to Kintsch & van Dijk 1978 cited in Lee, 2002b, that would make the discourse theme generally disorganised.
4. Use of cohesive devices to show references and lexical relations. Relevant and suitable cohesive devices should be introduced in the text to help establish relationship and meaning between sentences and different parts of a sentence. As mentioned by Halliday and Hasan 1976, cited in Lee 2002a, some examples that are relevant to the primary school context would be the use of referencing pronouns, determiners, subordinating and coordinating conjunctions, repetitions and words that show hyponymy or synonymy relations.
5. Use of appropriate meta-discourse markers like connectives such as ‘therefore’, ‘but’; sequencers such as ‘finally’, certainty markers like‘without a doubt’ and hedges such as ‘may’ when used correctly are most effective in that they help the Readers see the logical connections between paragraphs, interpret and evaluate the Writer’s information.
As I teach mostly in the upper primary level, I would propose to incorporate a 2-hour writing workshop on the Importance
of Coherence in Writing into my scheme of work. The workshop would highlight the above-mentioned (macro-elements) features with activities to engage and help my young audience understand certain terms and concepts.
Before the commencement of the workshop, I would conduct a simple students’ needs analysis, incorporating relevant aspects of target situation analysis and learning situation analysis as suggested by Robinson (1989, 1999 as cited in Paltridge et al, 2009). This is crucial information so that I could incorporate and tailor my writing lessons to teach explicitly the micro-elements of writing like cohesive devices and meta-discourse using student hand-outs, awareness-raising tasks and follow-up with writing practices after the workshop.
I am encouraged to explore the above possibility with my own students when I get back to school. As a practitioner for the last 2.5 decades, I never saw the need to set aside curriculum time to teach this aspect of writing. In retrospect, I was perhaps too overwhelmed with covering the syllabus and too caught up with producing results. According to Lee, I. (2002b), student awareness of how to write effectively will lead to improved coherence in their writing as they learn to be more attentive to their discourse level when revising their text.
References
Hyland, K. (2007). Genre pedagogy: language, literacy and L2 writing instruction. Journal of Second Language Writing. 16 (3): 148-164.
Lee, I. (2002a). Helping students develop coherence in writing. English Teaching Forum. 40 (3): 32-39
Lee, I. (2002b). Teaching coherence to ESL students: a classroom inquiry. Journal of Second Language Writing. 11 (2): 135-159.
Paltridge, B. (2004). Approaches to Teaching Second Language Writing at
http://www.englishaustralia.com.au/ea_conference04/proceedings/pdf/Paltridge.pdf
Paltridge, B., Harbon, L., Hirsch, D., Shen, H., Stevenson, M., Phakiti, A., et al. (2009). Teaching academic writing: An introduction for teachers of second language writers. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.
Wong, Y.L. (2010). Teaching text types in the Singapore primary classroom.Pearson Education. South Asia Pte Ltd.