Faculty of Communication and Modern Languages, Universiti Utara Malaysia
Abstract
Japanese learners of English have suffered from an inability to become competent communicators despite their large vocabulary and good grammar. This is mainly because their messages are not presented logically. To help with the learners’ difficulty, the researcher utilized paragraph reading and writing. The objectives of this study are to introduce a major problem advanced Japanese learners of English have and the approach the author has done to help the students overcome the difficulty. The participants were thirty-two university students and the topic of the writing was about Japanese culture. Their writings were evaluated with the focus on global errors. Achievements were measured when the students became aware of the English logical
organization and increased their knowledge on the appropriate rhetorical form for composing messages effectively, which was important for them to communicate both in spoken and written English. Key challenges were that students had difficulty understanding the concept of “coherence” and writing coherent paragraphs
