In recent years, an increasing number of studies have explored the English writing ability of Taiwanese EFL learners and revealed numerous challenges that Taiwanese students have been confronted with (Chao, 2002; Chen, 2002; Liou, 2008; Shen, 2004; Tsai, 2012; Yang, 2003). These challenges may partially result from the scarcity of writing training in school environment and the lack of motivation to write in
English. Furthermore, writing is difficult for Taiwanese learners because several essential skills are required in the process of writing, one of which is organizing information structure (Chen, 2002; Shen, 2004; Yang, 2003). Yang (2003) indicated that Taiwanese high school students frequently fail to organize clauses in a
composition; Chao (2002) and Shen (2004) also suggested that high school students fail to attend to connection between clauses, which results in unsatisfactory
information structure. When learners compose English writings, maintaining the connection at clause level and arranging old and new information are often difficult to them (Mellos, 2011; Moore, 2006; Wang, 2007; Witte & Faigley, 1981). The inability to organize information might result in inferior cohesion and prohibit readers from understanding the text. Thus, the above reasons reveal the need to explore the area of cohesion in Taiwanese EFL students’ writing of English.
Purpose of the study
The purpose of this study is to investigate how Taiwanese learners achieve cohesion in their writings. It compared the difference of cohesion in higher-rated and lower-rated writings in order to deepen our understanding on the features of cohesion in higher level writings and display the weakness of cohesion in lower-level writings written by Taiwanese EFL learners. Cohesion is defined as the relation of meanings
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that exists in a text (Halliday & Hasan, 1976), and it “occurs where the interpretation of some element in the discourse is dependent on that of another” (Halliday & Hasan, 1976, p. 4). Cohesion concerns the quality of text since developing information cohesively increases the readability of the text. A passage lacking cohesion cannot become a text since the relation of meanings fails to be established. Thus, the cohesion of students’ composition is an area worth exploring and improving in that cohesion deals with the information structure at global level, making it a crucial element of a successful writing.
In addition, the present study particularly explored how cohesion was achieved in expository essays. In Chinese EFL context, the skill to compose expository essays has been a crucial skill when students advance their education or apply for job positions (Xu, 2000; Yang, Ramírez & Harman, 2011). This skill is also assessed in major English examinations such as college entrance exams and public English proficiency tests in Taiwan. For genre theorists, teaching explicitly the specific features of a genre may benefit English learners in ESL or EFL context. Therefore, expository essays written by Taiwanese learners were studied quantitatively and qualitatively, and how cohesion was constructed in successful expository writings was revealed.
In sum, this study seeks to propose some explicit suggestions to guide the teaching and evaluation of cohesion in expository essays. Those suggestions might hopefully offer a more comprehensive and scientific way to treat Taiwanese English learners’ cohesion, and the teaching and learning of cohesion may also become more consistent. The information can become the reference for students to consider when organizing their ideas in writings; English writing instructors can also refer to it when evaluating students’ information structure or designing writing classes.
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Significance of the Study
First of all, only few researchers (Chao, 2002; Shen, 2004; Tsai, 2012) have tapped into the information structure in Taiwanese EFL learners’ essays, so a comprehensive understanding of Taiwanese English learners’ cohesion in various genres is still critically lacking, and literature comparing students of higher and lower level is little. It would thus be worth investigating the features of cohesion in
expository or argumentative essays in Taiwanese EFL context (Tsai, 2012). If general patterns of how information cohesively developed in expository writing can be proposed, the patterns can help English instructors deepen their understanding in Taiwanese writers’ issues in cohesion.
Secondly, in Taiwanese EFL context, the training of writing starts after students enter senior high school, where teachers train students to compose short narrative essays and expository essays. However, as in many EFL contexts, the teaching and learning of writing are limited to local features such as grammar points or sentence structure. The global feature in learners’ essays such as cohesion is often unaddressed, and students have little knowledge of how to develop their ideas cohesively. Thus, if explicit suggestions and common errors of cohesion in Taiwanese writers’ essays are proposed, teachers can depend on these information to design an effective and efficient writing class on cohesion.
Thirdly, teachers often lack a tool to assess cohesion in students’ texts (Belmonte
& McCabe, 1998). While few studies have investigated the problems of cohesion in ESL or EFL learners’ writing, suggestions for evaluating students’ cohesion in writing are still critically lacking. Numerous researchers investigated the cohesion of
students’ essays (e.g., Ebrahimi & Ebrahimi, 2012a; Green, Christopher, & Mei, 2000;
Hawes & Thomas,1997; Hewings, 2004; Li, 2009; McCabe, 1999; Wang, 2007), but
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few have proposed more comprehensive and explicit suggestions to treat cohesion in expository writings. Therefore, the results of the study may benefit teachers or
examiners that they can identify and treat students’ cohesion problems based on these suggestions. In sum, the findings of the study are expected to contribute to learning and teaching of cohesion in expository writings and also the evaluation of cohesion.
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