COHESION IN NARRATIVE ESSAY WRITING OF EFL SECONDARY STUDENTS IN THAILAND

Cohesion has been in the limelight of many linguists in terms of investigating how texts are related to each other. This study examines what cohesive devices are used in students’ narrative essays and which cohesive device is most frequently used in each type among three groups of students. Thirty participants, all of whom were grade 11 students at a public school in Bangkok, were divided into three groups: advanced, intermediate and beginner. The main instrument for data analysis was a sample of 30 finished student’s narrative essays in which cohesion was extracted. The findings revealed that four types of cohesion: reference, substitution, conjunction and lexical cohesion were found in students’ narrative essays, while elliptical cohesion was noticeably absent. The comparison of each sub-category among three target groups showed that 141 personal references ‘I’ was the most frequently used in the advanced group, followed by 113 additive conjunctions ‘and’ in the advanced group, 95 collocations in the advanced group and 18 nominal substitutions ‘one’ in the beginner group respectively. This study could provide useful suggestions for the EFL writing classroom for not only students to improve the use of cohesion in their writings but also for teachers to prepare a practical writing pedagogy for the EFL students

Developing an innovative computer-based test

This paper examines the development of an innovative item type for a computer-based test. The test is one specifically designed for engineers and technicians in Thailand and includes a section assessing the reading of technical manuals. Having set test specifications, it was decided to test the reading of manuals in an authentic way by asking test-takers to assemble objects on the computer screen following given instructions. MacroMedia Flash MX was used to write this section. Based on feedback on this test, which was designed to test the ability to follow instructions, from both colleagues and students who had piloted the test, adaptations were made and test characteristics were investigated. The process of developing the innovative item type exhibits features from the fields of test design and materials design.13 page(s