A corpus-based study of Malaysia ESL students' use of discourse connectors in upper and post-secondry argumentative writing

Discourse connectors (DCs) are one of the elements of cohesive devices that bring about cohesion to a piece of writing or speech. They are potentially useful means for writers,particularly in ESL and EFL writing pedagogic settings. DCs usefulness is two-pronged. First, they help and guide readers through the text, and then they are tools for writers to engage with their readers. It has been well-documented that appropriate and efficient use of DCs will create a coherent flow of the text. However, second/foreign language learners have some difficulties to use them efficiently and systematically in their writing. Literature review shows that the Malaysian ESL students are also suffering from improper and efficient use of DCs which leads them in failing to produce a cohesive text. Surprisingly, no single study was found in the context of Malaysia to investigate Malaysian ESL students’ understanding and use of DCs. Hence, this study attempted to investigate and understand the nature and the use of the DCs in the Malaysian student writing compared with Native speakers writing. The study also was set to examine the correlation between the frequency use of the DCs and the quality of writing. The final goal of this research study was to find out to what extent Malaysian ESL students are committing errors while using DCs. A corpus-based approach was adopted to meet the objectives of the study. To this end,an argumentative topic was assigned to the Form 4, Form 5 (upper-secondary) and the first year college students (post-secondary) and they were asked to write about the given topic in the classroom and submit their works to the instructors. They were required to write 250 words within 45 minutes. Upon compilation of the essays, the Malaysian Corpus of Students' Argumentative Writing (MCSAW) was built with ≃ 600,000 tokens. To compare and find out a vivid picture of Malaysian ESL students use of DCs with Native English Speakers, the Louvain Corpus of Native Essay Writing [LOCNESS] corpus was used. Oxford Wordsmith Tools (5) was employed to extract data from corpus for analysis, by using frequency count and concordance functions. Aiming to identify what type of DCs is used by Malaysian ESL students, Discourse Connector List developed by Rezvani Kalajahi and Neufeld (2014) was used. To be able to examine the relationship between the quality of writing and the frequency of the use of the DCs, ESL composition profile offered by Jacobs et al. (1981) was utilized. Finally, a framework of identification of DCs error type was developed by the researcher to explore the errors that students commit while using DCs. Findings of this study entail three phases. First, it was observed that Malaysian students tend to use DCs more frequently than native students. The overall frequency of the use of the DCs between Malaysian and native students was statistically significant at p < .05. However, the native students used more variety of DCs types than Malaysian students (398vs.328). It was also found that Malaysian students use DCs in some categories frequently and infrequently. Based on the findings in the native students writing (LOCNESS Corpus), the most frequent DCs in written English were offered. Second,there was a very weak negative but insignificant correlation between writing quality and the frequency of the use of the DCs in the writing of Malaysian ESL students. Finally,the qualitative analysis revealed that the erroneous use of DCs made by Malaysian ESL student writers mainly manifested in eight different categories. They had problems with the use of these devices which involved semantic, syntactic, stylistic, positional and mechanical errors. They also appeared to have tendency for unnecessary addition, omission, and redundant repetition of the DCs. In conclusion, this study demonstrated that Malaysian ESL students’ use of DCs was still at an evolving level. It is vitally important that the accurate use of DCs in writing among Malaysian students be further highlighted in the classrooms through using concordance lines and adopting explicit instruction technique. Besides, material developers may take the outcome of the research into consideration and could find out possible ways to distribute and introduce DCs systematically across the educational levels

EVALUATIVE FUNCTIONS OF REPORTING VERBS IN THE INTRODUCTIONS OF MASTER THESES

Purpose of the study: This study has unearthed the serious challenges faced postgraduate students in the University of Technology in either over-using or miss-using of some reporting verbs which make their work monotonous and repetitive Methodology: The study is based on a small corpus consisting of the Introduction (henceforth LR) in 3 master theses written by students from the University of Technology who finished their Master's degree in engineering. It is important to mention here that the term” writer” is used to refer to the master student who is reporting information and ideas of the previous studies written in the same field and the term “source” refers to the person who is being reported as a reference in the study.&nbsp; Results: The analysis revealed the students' preference to use factive verbs more than non-factive verbs; however, they are non-willing to use counter-factive verbs in writing the Introductions. This indicates their inability to challenge existing knowledge in the field effectively. Applications of this study: This research can be used for the universities, teachers, and students. Novelty/Originality of this study: In this research, the model of the Evaluative Functions of Reporting Verbs in the Introductions of Master Theses is presented in a comprehensive and complete manner

Constructing an organized and coherent text: how discourse markers are viewed by Iranian post-graduate students?

The purpose of this study is to explore how five Iranian post-graduate students view discourse markers (DMs) and if there is any distinction between what is expressed in the interview and their writing samples. A qualitative method is being employed in the study. Purposive sampling is conducted in selecting the students. The findings indicate that all informants are fully aware of applying DMs in their writing but they do not have sufficient knowledge for the proper use and choosing appropriate ones. The findings are very specific and never mentioned in the previous research studies. However, more research needs to be undertaken in order to address the diversity of students with a bigger sample and various methodology

Does Applying Vocabulary Learning Strategies Vary Based on Gender? The Case of Turkish EFL Learners

This research study aimed at exploring the vocabulary learning strategies of the undergraduate English Language Teaching students at Eastern Mediterranean University in Northern Cyprus. These research questions posed accordingly: 1.What is the frequency of vocabulary leaning strategies? 2. Is there any difference in applying vocabulary learning strategies by male and female students? In order to analyze data and answer research questions, inferential statistics via SPSS (17) deployed. The finding of the study revealed that 24 vocabulary learning strategies out of 44 VLS (including psycholinguistic and metacognitive strategies) are being used infrequently while only 20 vocabulary learning strategies are being applied frequently via learners. However, the frequency mean for the psycholinguistic strategy use, metacognitive strategies as well as the overall frequency mean was slightly higher for the female respondents. Keywords: gender difference, vocabulary learning strategies, language learning strategie

Comparing the effect of blogging as well as pen-and-paper on the essay writing performance of Iranian graduate students.

In today's world, there are lots of methods in language teaching in general and teaching writing in particular. Using two different tools in writing essays and conducting a study to compare the effectiveness of these two tools namely blog and pen-and-paper was the basis of this study. This study used a quantitative true experimental design aimed at comparing the students' writing performance scores by using pen-and-paper essay writing and blogging among Iranian graduate students of University Putra Malaysia (UPM). The result of this study showed that the tools by themselves could not effect on the quality of writing essays and improvement in the students' writing performance. However, using technology and in this study, Internet can motivate the EFL learners to write more eagerly since they may like innovation in learning in contrast with traditional old methods of learning writing and practicing it. Yet it does not necessarily improve their writing performance only because of using computer and Internet. The Iranian graduate students of UPM found blog more interesting and motivating tool for writing, but it was not as easy using as pen-and-paper for them with which everyone is familiar. This research could find answers to the research questions posed at the beginning of the study and investigated the hypotheses presented then

Discourse connectors: an overview of the history, definition and classification of the term

Many studies have investigated discourse connectors. However, researchers are still grappling with the term in terms of its definition and classification in particular. Many researchers use the term discourse markers (DMs) while others have used terms like linking words, connectives, discourse operators and discourse connectors to refer to the same idea. This paper attempts to better define the term and propose a classification of DCs in written discourse. As is evident from the literature, researchers are unable to agree on the best definition for the term connectors or what is generally known as discourse markers. Researchers in the field have put forward a few different definitions and descriptions of what connectors are and their function in language and some researchers have also developed their own taxonomy and classification for connectors. After reviewing research conducted on connectors, we decided for purposes of this paper to use the term ‘discourse connectors’ mainly because we believe these connectors function to link one portion of information to another one in a text and that while the term discourse marker is a suitable term for spoken discourse, its definition and classification may vary for written discourse. We define DCs as words and expressions that can be accommodated within the text to join one sentence with another sentence or one paragraph to another paragraph or even one idea to another. Finally, we attempt to offer a comprehensive definition and classification of discourse connectors with the aim to provide a better understanding of what DCs are and how they function, with variation from previous reviews of the term

Discourse connectors: an overview of the history, definition and classification of the term

Many studies have investigated discourse connectors. However, researchers are still grappling with the term in terms of its definition and classification in particular. Many researchers use the term discourse markers (DMs) while others have used terms like linking words, connectives, discourse operators and discourse connectors to refer to the same idea. This paper attempts to better define the term and propose a classification of DCs in written discourse. As is evident from the literature, researchers are unable to agree on the best definition for the term connectors or what is generally known as discourse markers. Researchers in the field have put forward a few different definitions and descriptions of what connectors are and their function in language and some researchers have also developed their own taxonomy and classification for connectors. After reviewing research conducted on connectors, we decided for purposes of this paper to use the term ‘discourse connectors’ mainly because we believe these connectors function to link one portion of information to another one in a text and that while the term discourse marker is a suitable term for spoken discourse, its definition and classification may vary for written discourse. We define DCs as words and expressions that can be accommodated within the text to join one sentence with another sentence or one paragraph to another paragraph or even one idea to another. Finally, we attempt to offer a comprehensive definition and classification of discourse connectors with the aim to provide a better understanding of what DCs are and how they function, with variation from previous reviews of the term

AN INVESTIGATION OF THE IMPACTS OF TEACHING WRITING SKILL THROUGH EXTENSIVE SHORT STORY READING

The present study is an attempt to test the effect of wide short story reading on the precision and difficulty of EFL students’ composition ability. The research was accomplished at Fan Bayan Language Institute in Ajabshir, Iran on advanced EFL students. The entire sample group of 30 learners exhibited a high amount of improvement in a composition ability pre-test, which had an experimental part and a control part. The experimental group of the study comprised three entire weeks of short story practicing before the final test. A composition skill post-test was administered for both the experimental and control groups of the study. The subjects’ compositions were graded according to precision and difficulty of the final test and a T-Test was applied to investigate the students’ improvement according to their grades. The outcomes of the research proved that long-time reading of such stories could empower students in the experimental group to apply and use many answer patterns in post-testing.  Keywords: literature, short stories, extensive reading, writing, accuracy, complexity.Cite as: Nozen, S.Z., Kalajahi, S.A.R., Abdullah, A.N., &amp; Jabbarzadeh, H. (2017). An investigation of the impacts of teaching writing skill through extensive short story reading. Journal of Nusantara Studies, 2(1), 53-70.  http://dx.doi.org/10.24200/jonus.vol2iss1pp53-7

Evaluating the presentation of new vocabulary items in Malaysian form three English language textbook

Learners in Malaysia usually face difficulties in acquiring their four skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing in English language because of their limited vocabulary knowledge. In order to solve the problem, effective vocabulary learning should be given serious attention. This study aimed to evaluate the presentation of new vocabulary items in the Form Three English language textbook used in Secondary Schools in Malaysia. A group of purposively selected teachers (n = 5) used a checklist to evaluate the presentation of vocabulary items in the textbook. The findings showed that the textbook is weak in vocabulary presentation. It was found that no specific method was followed to teach the new vocabulary. There was no index of the new vocabulary at the end of the textbook. The results have implications for the learners, English language teachers as well as textbook developers. The findings are also expected to provide guidance to teachers for improving their pedagogical practices in teaching vocabulary and to compensate for the weaknesses of the presentation of vocabulary in the textbook