Assessing Coherence in EFL High School Students' Writing by Using Topical Structure Analysis

• Main Authors: Zheng, Ren-wun, 鄭人文
• Other Authors: Wey, Shyh-chyi
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2016
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/44624628223294619246

碩士 === 國立雲林科技大學 === 應用外語系 === 104 === The current study aimed to explore how topical structures employed in senior high school students’ narrative writing influenced the coherence of their writing text. Twenty senior school students were the participants in the study. The writing samples were analyzed with topical structure analysis proposed by Liisa Lautamatti (1987). The findings of the current study showed that good writing samples demonstrated higher percentage of using sequential progression, and extended parallel progression, compared with the poor writing samples. The poor writing samples showed far higher percentage of parallel progressions compared with good writing samples. Moreover, the poor writing samples showed far higher percentage of coherence break, or rather the percentage of unjustified topic change, compared with the good writing samples. The finding of the current study would be beneficial to writing teachers in enhancing coherence in students’ writing. Topical structural analysis could be taught in class and serves as the revision tool for students.