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An Assessment of Cohesion and Coherence in Students’ Descriptive and Narrative Essays: The Case of Sodo Preparatory School Grade Eleven Students’

Received: 21 November 2019    Accepted: 23 December 2019    Published: 6 March 2020
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Abstract

This study is aimed to assess the students’ use of cohesion and coherence in their descriptive and narrative essays. It was conducted at Sodo Preparatory School on grade 11 students. The descriptive research design was employed to achieve the intended aim of the study. In this study, 30 grade eleven students were selected as participants through simple random sampling technique. Document analysis was used to collect data from the sample students. The data collected through document analysis was analyzed qualitatively based on the analysis parameters of cohesive devices; such as, substitution ellipsis, reference, conjunction and lexical cohesion to determine meaningfully (coherently) written students’ essays. The findings revealed that students’ used a variety of cohesive devices in each genre of writing except ellipsis and they employed all the other sub categories of cohesive devices in their (descriptive and narrative) essays. However, among the frequently used cohesive devices, the largest numbers of connectors were inappropriately instanced regarding the total use of devices. The students’ inappropriate use of cohesive devices mainly appeared with conjunction, followed by reference, lexical cohesion, and substitution signals. As a result, the essays lacked consistent key expressions, clear purpose of the statement, and the logical shift from one sentence to the other. Based these findings, conclusions and recommendations were made.

Published in English Language, Literature & Culture (Volume 5, Issue 1)
DOI 10.11648/j.ellc.20200501.15
Page(s) 45-52
Creative Commons

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

Copyright

Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Cohesion, Coherence, Descriptive and Narrative Essays

References
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[2] Atkins, J. Hailom, B and Nuru, M. (1996). Skills Development Methodology Part 2. Department of Forien Language and LIterature. Addis Ababa: Addis Ababa University press.
[3] Richards, J and Renandya, W., A. (2002). Methodology in Language Teaching: An anthology of current practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[4] Lee, I. (2002). ''Helping students Develop coherence in writing.'' English Teaching Forum.
[5] Tanawong, P. (2014). The relationship between cohesion and coherence in writing: The case of THAI EFL students'. Thesis, M. A (Teaching English as a foreign Language). Bangkok: Graduate school, Srinakharinwirot: Srinakharinwirot University press.
[6] Mawardi, J. (2014). An Analysis of the Cohesion and Coherence of the Students’ Narrative Writings in the English Language Education Department of Nahdlatul Wathan Mataram University. GanecSwara. Vol. 8, No. 1, pg. 80-90. Retrieved from http://unmasmataram.ac.id/wp/wp-content/uploads /12.Mawardi.pdf
[7] Hessamy, G., & Hamedi, S. (2013). A Comparison of the Use of Cohesive Devices in EFL Learners' Performance on Independent vs. Integrated Writing Tasks. Study in English Language Teaching Vol. 1, No. 1. pg. 121-146. Retrieved from www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/selt.
[8] Karadeniz, A. (2017). Cohesion and Coherence in Texts of students of Faculity of Education. Journal of Education and Teaching studies, Vo. 5, No. 2. Retrieved from URL: http:// www. dx. doi. org/ 10.1114/jets.
[9] Senoz, C. A. (2005). Text linguistics and Turkish. Istanbul: Multilingual.
[10] Witte, S., & Faigley, L. (2008). Coherence, Cohesion, and Writing Quality. College Composition and Communication, Vol. 32, No. 2, pg. 189-204. Retrieved from http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici.
[11] Harmmer, J. (2004). How to teach writing. Longman.
[12] Sayidina, A. (2010) Transfer of L1 Cohesive Devices and Transition Words into L2 Academic Texts: The Case of Arab Students. RELC Journal, 41 (3), p253.
[13] Mohammed, H. (2015). Assessing students' paragraph writing problems: The case of Bedano secondary school, grade 10 English class focus. Haramaya University press.
[14] Kebede, A. (2013). Assessment on cohesion and coherence in students paragraph writing: The case of Bedeno Preparatory school, grade 12 English classes focus. Haramaya University press.
[15] Tilahun, T. (2015). An Evaluation of English for Ethiopia Grade 12 Students' Textbook in Cultivating Students' Paragraph Writing Skills with Particular Emphasis on Cohesion: Bantu Preparatory School in Focus. Jimma University press.
[16] Alsaawi, A. (2016). Written Discourse Analysis and its Application in English Language Teaching: School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences (ECLS): Newcastle University, United Kingdom. Arab World English Journal (AWEJ) Volume. 7, Number. 2.
[17] Denscombe, M. (2007). The Good Research Guide: For small-scale social research projects. (3rd Ed.). Open University press.
[18] Kothari, C., R. (2004). Research Methodology: Methods and Techniques. (2nd Ed.). Published by New Age International (P) Ltd, publishers.
[19] Dornyei, Z. (2007). Research Methods in Applied Linguistcs: Qualitative, Quantitative and Mixed Methodologies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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  • APA Style

    Abebayehu Anjulo Alaro. (2020). An Assessment of Cohesion and Coherence in Students’ Descriptive and Narrative Essays: The Case of Sodo Preparatory School Grade Eleven Students’. English Language, Literature & Culture, 5(1), 45-52. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ellc.20200501.15

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    Abebayehu Anjulo Alaro. An Assessment of Cohesion and Coherence in Students’ Descriptive and Narrative Essays: The Case of Sodo Preparatory School Grade Eleven Students’. Engl. Lang. Lit. Cult. 2020, 5(1), 45-52. doi: 10.11648/j.ellc.20200501.15

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    AMA Style

    Abebayehu Anjulo Alaro. An Assessment of Cohesion and Coherence in Students’ Descriptive and Narrative Essays: The Case of Sodo Preparatory School Grade Eleven Students’. Engl Lang Lit Cult. 2020;5(1):45-52. doi: 10.11648/j.ellc.20200501.15

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  • @article{10.11648/j.ellc.20200501.15,
      author = {Abebayehu Anjulo Alaro},
      title = {An Assessment of Cohesion and Coherence in Students’ Descriptive and Narrative Essays: The Case of Sodo Preparatory School Grade Eleven Students’},
      journal = {English Language, Literature & Culture},
      volume = {5},
      number = {1},
      pages = {45-52},
      doi = {10.11648/j.ellc.20200501.15},
      url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ellc.20200501.15},
      eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ellc.20200501.15},
      abstract = {This study is aimed to assess the students’ use of cohesion and coherence in their descriptive and narrative essays. It was conducted at Sodo Preparatory School on grade 11 students. The descriptive research design was employed to achieve the intended aim of the study. In this study, 30 grade eleven students were selected as participants through simple random sampling technique. Document analysis was used to collect data from the sample students. The data collected through document analysis was analyzed qualitatively based on the analysis parameters of cohesive devices; such as, substitution ellipsis, reference, conjunction and lexical cohesion to determine meaningfully (coherently) written students’ essays. The findings revealed that students’ used a variety of cohesive devices in each genre of writing except ellipsis and they employed all the other sub categories of cohesive devices in their (descriptive and narrative) essays. However, among the frequently used cohesive devices, the largest numbers of connectors were inappropriately instanced regarding the total use of devices. The students’ inappropriate use of cohesive devices mainly appeared with conjunction, followed by reference, lexical cohesion, and substitution signals. As a result, the essays lacked consistent key expressions, clear purpose of the statement, and the logical shift from one sentence to the other. Based these findings, conclusions and recommendations were made.},
     year = {2020}
    }
    

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    AB  - This study is aimed to assess the students’ use of cohesion and coherence in their descriptive and narrative essays. It was conducted at Sodo Preparatory School on grade 11 students. The descriptive research design was employed to achieve the intended aim of the study. In this study, 30 grade eleven students were selected as participants through simple random sampling technique. Document analysis was used to collect data from the sample students. The data collected through document analysis was analyzed qualitatively based on the analysis parameters of cohesive devices; such as, substitution ellipsis, reference, conjunction and lexical cohesion to determine meaningfully (coherently) written students’ essays. The findings revealed that students’ used a variety of cohesive devices in each genre of writing except ellipsis and they employed all the other sub categories of cohesive devices in their (descriptive and narrative) essays. However, among the frequently used cohesive devices, the largest numbers of connectors were inappropriately instanced regarding the total use of devices. The students’ inappropriate use of cohesive devices mainly appeared with conjunction, followed by reference, lexical cohesion, and substitution signals. As a result, the essays lacked consistent key expressions, clear purpose of the statement, and the logical shift from one sentence to the other. Based these findings, conclusions and recommendations were made.
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Author Information
  • Department of English Language and Literature, Jinka University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

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