Thiết kế bài tập về tính mạch lạc và liên kết dựa trên các bài luận ielts mẫu và nghiên cứu

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ---***--- NGUYỄN THỊ MINH DESIGNING EXERCISES ON COHERENCE AND COHESION ON THE BASIS OF IELTS MODEL ESSAYS AND EXPERIMENTING THEM IN TEACHING AND LEARN

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

-*** -

NGUYỄN THỊ MINH

DESIGNING EXERCISES ON COHERENCE AND COHESION ON THE BASIS OF IELTS MODEL ESSAYS AND EXPERIMENTING THEM IN

TEACHING AND LEARNING IELTS WRITING

(THIẾT KẾ BÀI TẬP VỀ TÍNH MẠCH LẠC VÀ LIÊN KẾT DỰA TRÊN CÁC BÀI LUẬN IELTS MẪU VÀ NGHIÊN CỨU THỬ NGHIỆM TRONG

DẠY HỌC VIẾT LUẬN IELTS)

M.A THESIS (Program II)

Major: English Linguistics Code: 60.22.15

Hanoi, August 31 st , 2010

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE DEPARTMENT

Major: English Linguistics Code: 60.22.15 Supervisor: Prof Dr Hoàng Văn Vân

Hanoi, August 31 st , 2010

1.2.2.2 Patterns of Essay Organization 16

1.3 An Overview on IELTS Writing Tasks 21

Chapter 2: Exercises on Coherence and Cohesion Built on the Basis of IELTS Model Essays

22

2.2 Aims and Objectives of the Exercises 22

2.4 Approaches to Designing the Exercises 23

2.8 2 Examining Causes and Effects 53

2.8 3 Outlining Problems and Solutions 58

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

IELTS HCSs

α

H0 H1

International English Language Testing System Holistic coherence scores

Level of significance Null hypothesis Alternative hypothesis

LIST OF DIAGRAMS AND TABLES

Diagram 1 “Block” Organization- Cause & Effect Organization Pattern (Exercise 13) 54

Diagram 2 “Chain” Organization- Cause & Effect Organization Pattern (Exercise 13) 54

Tables

Table 1 Argument Patterns

Table 2: The Writing Process

Table 3: Product Approach vs Process Approach

Table 4 Structure of an Essay (Exercise 3)

Table 5 Conjunctions and References/ Transition Signals (Exercise 9)

Table 9 Conjunctions and Markers of Causes and Effects (Exercise 19) 57

Table 11 Sentence Structures of Cause and Effect (Exercise 21) 58

Table 14: Experimental group: paired samples statistics (n=10) 70

Table 15: Control group: paired samples statistics (n=11) 70

Table 16: Differences between the experimental and control groups’ mean scores

(n=21)

70

Table 17 Structure of an Essay (Key to Exercise 3)

Table 18 Organization Pattern of Model Essay 1 (Key to exercise 5)

Table 19 Organization Pattern of Model Essay 2 (Key to exercise 5)

Table 20 Organization Pattern of Model Essay 3 (Key to exercise 5)

VII

IX

X

XI

Table 21 Conjunctions and References/ Transition Signals (Key to Exercise 9) XIII

Table 22 Lexical Cohesive Devices (Key to Exercise 10) XV

Table 23 Grammatical and Mechanic Mistakes (Key to Exercise 18) XVII

Table 24 Lexical Cohesive Devices (Key to Exercise 20) XIX

Table 25: Holostic Coherence Scores on the Pre- and Post-tests of the

Experimental and Control Groups

Table 30: Differences between the Experimental and Control Group’ Mean

Scores: F-test Two-sample for Variances

XXV

Table 31: Differences between the Experimental and Control Group’ Mean

Scores: T-test Two-sample Assuming Unequal Variances

XXVI

INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the Study

The choice of this study was prompted by both theoretical and practical inspirational sources

Theoretically, designing exercises on cohesion and coherence on the basis of IELTS model essays was inspired by a matter of necessity Cohesion and coherence are actually regarded as the important aspects of language use The knowledge of cohesion and coherence is very essential in discourse construction and comprehension for communication According to McNamara and Kintsch (1996), text cohesion is a driving factor of comprehension, and moreover, text characteristics critically interact with readers‟ abilities In other words, the awareness of these two elements may help writers to construct good essays with coherence and cohesion so that readers can understand it more easily Many researchers also affirm that coherence backed by cohesion is an important factor in determining essay writing quality (Stein and Albro, 1997; Shapiro and Hudson, 1997; Hoover, 1997; Grabe and Kaplan, 1996)

In addition, the preference for this study was also prompted by the fact that theory of coherence and cohesion and IELTS model essays can be found in a variety

of books, namely Cohesion in English by Halliday and Hasan (1976), What makes a

text coherent? by Bamberg (1984), Coherence, Cohesion, and Writing Quality by

Witte and Faigley (1980), or in studies such as Conjunctions as Devices of

Grammatical Cohesion in English Written Discourse by Thái Thị Bạch Yến (1998),

An Analysis of Topical Cohesion in English Socio-Political news Discourse, Exploring the Role of Model Essays in the IELTS Writing Test: A Feedback Tool by

http://www.wretch.cc/blog/sdrex/29671929 Nevertheless, there have not been any works that build and experiment a system of exercises on coherence and cohesion based on IELTS model essays in the context of Vietnamese learners The writing section in the websites or books designed for IELTS usually comprises exercise questions, useful resources of vocabulary and expressions, practice tests and the answer keys Remarkably, the website http://ilsielts.blogspot.com/2009/05/ielts-

essays-exercise-in-coherence-and.html, the book Writing Academic English by Oshima, A and Hogue, A (1999) have some exercises on cohesion and coherence in IELT essays, but they are too few, not systematic, and especially they do not cover the ones that help students recognize and know how to achieve these two elements in different functions of IELTS essay writing, which are often asked in the IELTS

Besides, the study on Japanese students named An Analysis of Topical Cohesion in English Socio- Political news Discourse, Exploring the Role of Model Essays in the IELTS Writing Test: A Feedback Tool by Makoto Abe (2008) shows that model texts

(sample answers) as a source of feedback in second language writing play a substantial role Nevertheless, it does not deal with the role of exercises on coherence and cohesion in IELTS essays Therefore, this thesis was conducted with the aims of building a system of exercises on coherence and cohesion in different functions of IELTS writing based on IELTS model essays and experimenting them in the teaching and learning of IELTS writing

Practically, more and more students attend IELTS courses in Vietnam, and the writing task of this test system requires coherence and cohesion to be an important criterion in marking However, can Vietnamese students write IELTS essays coherently? After years of study, Vietnamese learners have been capable of writing an English composition with few grammatical or spelling mistakes, but the overall coherence have not been satisfactory This may result from the fact that many Vietnamese teachers of English still value the grammatical correctness of sentences over the appropriateness of organising and linking rules in a written text or speech under the many years‟ influence of Bloomfieldian and Chomskian schools of linguistics, while Discourse Analysis is still a new subject to most Vietnamese linguistics though there has been attention from linguistics to this new branch with several works on Vietnamese discourses such as the ones by Hoang Van Van (2006), Nguyen Hoa (2000) and this fact, as Hoang Van Van (2006) states, is the result of

„lack of a systematic theoretical framework‟ Besides, students have concentrated only on learning as much grammar and vocabulary as possible, ignoring the question

of how to build a persuasive speech or writing Similarly, being familiar with looking

at the sentence level, they seem only to focus on writing correct sentences and learning new words and phrases from sample essays but not to pay attention to the

coherence and cohesion of essays As a result, they may have a good knowledge of grammar and vocabulary, and they may be very good at making correct separate

sentences, but they cannot write IELTS essays coherently as required to get good

scores The systematic exercises on coherence and cohesion in IELTS model essays could be a solution to this problem of teaching and learning English writing

2 Aims and Objectives

This thesis mainly aims at designing exercises on coherence and cohesion on the basis of model IELTS essay for intermediate students, who start an IELTS course

to prepare for taking IELTS to study abroad To achieve this major goal, the following objectives are set for exploration:

- reviewing theoretical background of coherence and cohesion,

- building a system of exercises on the basis of IELTS model essays that can help intermediate students to become aware of coherence and cohesion and to write coherent essays, and

- testing the hypothesis that a system of exercises on coherence and cohesion built

on the basis of IELTS model essays would have great effects on students‟ performance to write their own IELTS essays coherently

3 Scope of the Study

This thesis focuses on building exercises on coherence and cohesion on the basis of IELTS model essays and experimenting them in teaching and learning IELTS essay writing The exercises are only concerned with the most common IELTS essays of Writing Task 2, in which writers present opinions, examine causes and effects, and outline problems and solutions because of their important role in IELTS writing and also owing to the constraints of time and page number of this thesis Besides, the experiment only checks whether these exercises have an effect on students‟ performance of writing coherent IELTS model essays in order that further researches can be decided to be carried on or not

4 Significance of the Study

The exercises on cohesion and coherence of IELTS model essays could be, to some degree, significant to the teaching and learning not only IELTS essay writing in particular but also academic writing in general This study might play a remarkable role in teaching and learning IELTS writing because coherence and cohesion are an important criterion of marking in IELTS writing, which the need of studying is increasing dramatically in Vietnam, yet most Vietnamese students have difficulty in writing coherent essays

In addition to this potentially good point, this study might supply materials to teach not only IELTS writing particularly but also academic writing generally since the academic writing test of the IELTS includes two tasks of writing Academic English, which is often required in English-medium academic education

Furthermore, the experimental study of the effects of these exercises on students‟ performance to write coherent IELTS essays enables the author of this study to test her hypothesis by reaching valid conclusions about the relationship between these two variables Accordingly, the recommendations to the teaching and learning of academic writing would be more practical

Hopefully, the exercises on coherence and cohesion in IELTS model essays can work as useful teaching as well as learning references, and they can help students become more aware of these elements and write more coherently It is also hoped that pedagogical implications of the study, to some extent, can work well in practice and make certain contributions to the teaching and learning English as a foreign language

5 Methods of the Study

As far as the building of exercises is concerned, the Product Approach and the Process Approach were combined to be applied in a flexible way After that, to

check whether these exercises realistically would have good effects on students‟

ability to write their own coherent IELTS essays, the researcher carried out an

experimental research The reasons why these methods were chosen and how they were applied will be detailed in Chapter 2 and 3

6 Organization of the Study

This study is organized around three chapters

After the introduction, which introduces the rationale, the aims and objectives, the scope, the significance, the methods, and the organization of the study, Chapter 1 provides theoretical background for the researcher to create exercises on coherence and cohesion basing on IELTS model essays and to do the experimental research about the effect of these exercises on students‟ performance of writing coherent IELTS essays

Chapter 2 presents the subjects of using the exercises, aims, objectives, and uses of the exercises, approaches to designing the exercises, data and procedures of designing the exercises, some specifications of the exercises, and a sequence of exercises on coherence and cohesion built on the basis of IELTS model essays

Chapter 3 is the experimental study In this chapter, the section of methodology gives the details of participants, design of the study, data collection instrument, data collection procedures, and data analysis The next section shows the results of the study

Finally, the conclusion summarises all the main points of the thesis, and states its contributions, recommendations, limitations, and suggestions for further studies

1.1 Cohesion versus Coherence

Since cohesion and coherence are the two terms closely connected to discourse and there seems to be confusing in the use of these different terms, a large number of linguists and researchers are concerned about separating coherence from cohesion Widdowson (1979) defines cohesion as the overt structural link between sentences as formal items, and coherence as the link between the communicative acts

that sentences used to perform Besides, Moe (1979:18) observes, “Linguists consider cohesion as a measurable linguistic phenomenon, whereas coherence is considered to be more global and is not directly amenable to evaluation”

Additionally, many researchers think of cohesion as being limited to textual features while coherence is thought of as including those features that give unity and flow, not only within the text but beyond it – those features which add in the choice and instantiation of appropriate schemata by the reader (Carrel 1982, Beaugrande and Dressler 1981, Phelps 1985, Tierney and Mosenthal 1983, Werth 1984) Similarly,

Mc Carthy (1991:26) remarks: “cohesion is only a guild to coherence and cohesion

is something created by the reader in the act of reading the text Coherence is the feeling that a text hangs together, that it makes sense, and is not just a jumble of sentences” Graesser, McNamara, and Louwerse (2003) further specify that

coherence refers to the representational relationships of a text in the mind of a reader

or listener, whereas cohesion refers to the cues in the text that help the reader to build

a coherent representation (Foltz, 2007)

Clearly, most linguists and researchers meet the same point that cohesion refers to the grammatical, lexical and structural links between the different elements

of a text whereas coherence refers to the relationship of the ideas in a text that link

together to create a meaningful discourse for the reader; coherence exists in a sequence of words, sentences and paragraphs in which the reader can feel unity and smooth flow, perceive connections and understand the structure and therefore the meaning as he reads, i.e coherence is the outcome of cognitive processes among text users while cohesion is a mere feature of texts that assists this process; coherence is embodied by a system of cohesive devices, and cohesion is mainly used to embody coherence

1.2 Cues for Coherent Representation

According to Brostoff (1981) and Flackenstein (1992), coherence is made possible by the writer‟s provision of cues that guide the reader as he or she reads through a paragraph or text After reading documents about coherence and cohesion, the author of this study has found that there are three major groups of the cues in a discourse They can be synthesized and named as cohesion, a good structure, and no grammatical or mechanical errors

1.2.1 Cohesion

The term coherence is defined in Lee (2002a) as the relationship of the ideas

in a text that link together to create a meaningful discourse for the reader This will help the reader to move easily from one sentence to another without feeling that there are gaps in the thought, puzzling gaps, or points missing Meanwhile, cohesion consists of certain linguistic devices such as pronouns, conjunctions, lexical items and so on which enables the writer or speaker to make relationships between entities and events explicit and to follow the writer‟s ideas more easily In other words, cohesion helps to create the interconnection of ideas in the text, which is crucial in the production of a coherent text According to Halliday and Hasan (1976), coherence is recognized by the overt presentation of cohesive devices to connect sentences or paragraphs in the text Jane Morris and

Graeme Hirstt (1991) also affirm, “cohesion is a useful indicator of coherence” In

addition, the fifth criterion of a fully coherent essay in Bamberg‟s (1984) four-point

holistic coherence scale is the skillful use of cohesive ties Furthermore, as

mentioned in 2.1 above, cohesion refers to the cues in the text that help the reader to

build a coherent representation (Foltz, 2007), coherence is embodied by a system of cohesive devices and cohesion is mainly used to embody coherence Thus, the role of cohesion or cohesive devices in the establishment of coherent discourse must be of

significance

Halliday and Hasan (1976) considered cohesion as a semantic concept which refers to relations of meaning that exists within the text, and which defines it as a text Although they do not make a clear distinction between cohesion and coherence, their detailed classification of the cohesive devices in English are highly appreciated They distinguish between grammatical and lexical cohesion

1.2.1.1 Grammatical Cohesion

According to Halliday and Hasan (1976), grammatical cohesion embraces four different devices: (i) reference, (ii) substitution, (iii) ellipsis and (iv) conjunction

(i) Reference

Halliday and Hasan (1976) characterize reference as “the specific nature of the information that is signaled for retrieval” They state, “In the case of reference the information to be retrieved is the referential meaning, the identity of the particular thing or class of things that is being referred to; and the cohesion lies in the continuity of reference, whereby the same thing enters the discourse a second time”

On the criterion of reference potential without regard to endophoric/exophoric distinction, Halliday and Hasan classified reference as three types: personal reference, demonstrative reference, and comparative reference

Firstly, personal reference is reference by means of function in the speech situation,

through the category of person, which includes personal pronouns, possessive

determiners (usually called „possessive adjectives‟), and possessive pronouns Secondly, demonstrative reference is considered as a form of verbal pointing; that is,

the speaker identifies the referent by locating it on a scale of proximity Finally,

comparative reference is indirect referent by means of identity or similarity

(ii) Substitution

As Halliday and Hasan defined, substitution is replacement of one linguistic item by another When we talk about replacement of one item by another, we mean replacement of one word/phrase with another word or phrase We can say substitution is a relation on lexicogrammatical level, the level of grammar and vocabulary, or linguistic „form‟ It is used to avoid repetition of a particular item For example, in

My axe is too blunt I must get a sharper one

You think John already knows? - I think everybody does

(Halliday and Hasan, 1976:89)

One and does are both substitutes: one substitutes for axe, and does for knows

(iii).Ellipsis

Ellipsis is known as the leaving out of words, phases or clauses from sentences where they are unnecessary because they have been referred to or mentioned in order to avoid repetition

are signaled by “yet, though, only, but, in fact, rather”, etc Causal conjunction expresses “result, reason and purpose” and is signaled by “so, then, for, because, for”, etc

1.2.1.2 Lexical Cohesion

Lexical cohesion differs from the other cohesive elements in text in that it is non-grammatical Lexical cohesion refers to the cohesive effect achieved by the selection of vocabulary The two basic categories of lexical cohesion are reiteration and collocation

According to Halliday and Hasan (1976), reiteration is a phenomenon that

“one lexical item refers back to another, to which it is related by having a common

referent” They classify reiteration into four types: (i) the same word (repetition), (ii)

a synonym/near-synonym, (iii) a superordinate (hyponym), and (iv) a general word

(i) Repetition:

The repetition of the same word can occur with identity of reference as in:

“Mary bit into a peach Unfortunately the peach wasn't ripe” or without identity of

reference as in: “Mary ate some peaches She likes peaches very much.” However,

it is worth noting that in many cases where the repeated items are not clear to be the

same referent, the repetition is advised to avoid The pronoun he is a better choice than the repeated John in the following example as it is not clear whether it is the

same John:

John took Mary to the dance John was left all alone

(Halliday and Hasan, 1976:281)

It is also avoided to repeat the same words constantly if it is possible when making a discourse because it shows a speaker or a writer‟s poor vocabulary and it makes the listener or reader feel bored with his/her product Therefore, a reference item, ellipsis, substitution or synonym/near-synonym, a superordinate, and a general word can be the alternative

(ii) a synonym/near-synonym

A synonym is a word which has the same or nearly the same (near-synonym) meaning as another word Here lexical cohesion derives from the choice of a lexical

item that is synonymous with a preceding one in some sense For example, lad is synonymous with boy and both of them refer to the same entity in the real world as in

the following example:

There‟s a boy climbing that tree The lad‟s going to fall if he doesn‟t take care

(Halliday and Hasan, 1976:279-280)

(iii) a superordinate (hyponym)

Hyponym is understood as a relationship between two words, in which the meaning of one of the words includes the meaning of the other For example, in

English the words animal and cat are related in such a way that cat refers to a type of animal, and animal is a general term that includes cat and other types of animal In this case, the general term animal is called a superordinate, and the specific term cat

is called a hyponym Another example is: “There‟s a boy climbing that tree The child‟s going to fall if he doesn‟t take care.” (Halliday and Hasan, 1976:279-280) In

this instance, child is a superordinate and boy is a hyponym

(iv) a general word

The general words correspond to major classes of lexical items General

words such as thing, person, make, and do, although limited in number, are not

clearly bounded and it is hardly possible to compile a definitive list of them They do function more or less as lexical items, so when they occur cohesively, they can be treated as instances of lexical cohesion That is, not all general words are used cohesively; in fact, only the nouns are, for the reason that a general word is cohesive only when in the context of reference- that is, when it has the same referent as whatever it is presupposing, and when it is accompanied by a reference item For

example, the general word idiot refers back to boy; in other words, they both denote

the same entity in the real world as in:

There‟s a boy climbing that tree

The idiot‟s going to fall if he doesn‟t take care

(Halliday and Hasan, 1976:279-280)

The second basic category of lexical cohesion, collocation, refers to the

semantic and structural relation among words, which native speakers can use subconsciously for comprehension or production of a text Halliday and Hasan argue the case of collocation as follows: “The cohesive effect … depends not so much on any systematic relationship as on their tendency to share the same lexical environment, to occur in COLLOCATION with one another In general, any two lexical items having similar patterns of collocation – that is, tending to appear in similar context – will generate a cohesive force if they occur in adjacent sentences (Halliday & Hasan 1976: 286) Halliday and Hasan understand that collocation is a relationship between lexical items that occur in the same environment, but they fail

to formulate a more precise definition Later, some linguists narrowed down the meaning of collocation to refer only to restricted type of collocations, whose meaning cannot be completely derived from the meaning of their elements For example, Manning and Schütze (1999) defined collocation as grammatically bound elements occurring in a certain order which are characterised by limited compositionality, i.e the impossibility of deriving the meaning of the total from the meanings of its parts We recognise two major types of collocation:

1 Collocation due to lexical-grammatical or habitual restrictions These restrictions limit the choice of words that can be used in the same grammatical structures with the word in question Collocations of this type occur within short spans, i.e within the bounds of a syntactic structure, such

as a noun phrase, (e.g “rancid butter”, “white coffee”, “mad cow disease”)

2 Collocation due to a typical occurrence of a word in a certain thematic environment: two words hold a certain lexical semantic relation, i.e their meanings are close semantically; therefore, they tend to occur in the same topics in texts O Vechtomova et al (2008) report examples of long span collocates identified using the Z-score such as “environment– pollution”,

“gene–protein” [4]

To sum up, cohesion is an important cue of coherent representation Therefore, it was considered when exercises on coherence were created and when the

experiment research was done However, ellipsis and substitutions are not common

in academic writing, so they were not a focus in this thesis

1.2.2 Structure

Van Dijk (1977) makes a further contribution to coherence as part of writing

quality by introducing the concept of structure This model of coherence entails „the

ordering of sentences‟ and „the ordering of facts‟ For example, for actions and events the discourse ordering will be called normal if their temporal and causal ordering corresponds to the linear order of the discourse (p.97) He further asserts that „essays, in addition to being unified around a theme or topic must have an overall form or structure if readers are to find them coherent over the whole discourse (p 149) O‟Brien (1992) also states that „the structure, plan or schema is the procedure that guarantees coherence and therefore communication‟ (p107) Structure is a necessary attribute of coherence In addition, the summary offered by Grabe and Kaplan (1996) suggests that coherence encapsulates the concepts of topic (Bereiter and Scardamalia, 1987; Halliday and Hasan, 1989; Martin, 1992), theme (Britton and Gulgoz, 1991; Singer, 1990), logic (Mann and Thompson, 1988; Singer, 1990; Van Dijk and Kintch, 1983), and structure (Britton and Gulgoz 1991; Martin, 1992; Singer, 1990; O Brien, 1992) Among these terms, structure refers to the organization of content or information in a text They posit that coherence is defined (implicitly or explicitly) as:

 having a discourse theme (overall topic or discourse),

 comprising a set of relevant assertions relating logically among themselves

by means of subordination, coordination, and or superordination from the level of the sentence to the top level of structuring of a text, and

 being organized by information structure imposed on assertions most effectively to guide the reader in understanding the theme or the intent of the author

Besides, Lautamatti (1990) writes that “propositional coherence can be considered as

a means of linking different parts of a [… ] frame by proceeding most commonly from top to bottom in the structure of hierarchically ordered information, that is,

from more general to more particular concepts” (1982:35) So, generally speaking, the creation of a “unified whole” (i.e the connection of meaning relationships) in written discourse might be achieved structurally by linking main ideas, that is framing ideas (macro-structures) with supporting ideas (micro-structures), and so increasing the accessibility of the text to its reader

Furthermore, among the following criteria of a fully coherent essay listed by Bamberg (1984):

i identifies topic

ii does not shift topics or digress

iii orients the reader by describing the context or situation

iv organizes details according to a discernible plan that is sustained throughout the essay

v skillfully uses cohesive ties such as lexical cohesion, conjunction, and reference to link sentences and paragraphs together

vi concludes with a statement that gives the reader a definite sense of closure

vii makes few or no grammatical or mechanical errors that interrupt the

discourse flow or the reading process the first, the second, the fourth, and the sixth criteria are those aspects of essay structure and organization patterns From these points of view, it can be affirmed that structure of an essay and the organization of information are the elements guaranteeing coherence in text

With the support of these views, in this study the structure is dealt with in terms of essay structure and patterns of essay organization in IELTS writing

theme or topic of the essay and gives general background information on the topic A thesis statement states the main focus of the essay or the specific topic that will be

discussed in the body; it may indicate the method of organisation of the entire essay; and it is usually the last sentence in the introductory paragraph Whatever the final sentence of the introduction is, it must lead naturally into the first body paragraph

Following an introduction are body paragraphs, which develop the main idea

or topic of the essay A body paragraph has three main parts: a topic sentence, supporting sentences, and a concluding sentence Firstly, the topic sentence states the main idea of the paragraph It has two essential parts: the topic and the controlling idea The topic names the subject or main idea of the paragraph The controlling idea limits the topic to one or two areas that can be discussed completely in the space of a single paragraph The topic sentence should not be too general or too specific and too many unrelated topics and ideas should not be mentioned here Secondly, supporting sentences develop the topic sentence That is, they support the topic sentence by giving details, reasons, examples, descriptions, facts, statistics, and quotations Every supporting sentence must directly explain or prove the main idea, which is stated in the topic sentence Finally, concluding sentence signals the end of the paragraph and leave the reader with important points to remember with the summarised main idea or a given final comment about the topic It is optional to include this one in a paragraph

The conclusion in an essay, like the concluding sentence in a body paragraph,

is a summary of review of the main points discussed in the body; especially, in argument essays it must be made sure to answer the question clearly It does not usually contribute a new idea, unless it is a minor point However, Adams G and Terry Peck (2001) advise IELTS candidates: “It is a good place to make recommendations or suggestions, to give advice and offer solutions, if you are asked

to do so” (p.71) The conclusion usually begins with a special concluding phrase that

links it to the rest of the essay such as in general, to sum up, to conclude and in conclusion

1.2.2.2 Patterns of Essay Organization

The link between clear, logical organization and effective communication is powerful, both for the "sender" and the "receiver." For the writer, a well organized outline of information serves as a blue print for action It provides focus and direction as the writer composes the document, which helps to ensure that the stated purpose is fulfilled For the reader, clear organization greatly enhances the ease with which one can understand and remember the information being presented People seek out patterns to help make sense of information When the reader is not able to find a pattern that makes sense, chaos and confusion abound Effective communication, then, begins with a clearly organized set of ideas following a logical, consistent pattern Thus, one of the most important decisions a writer makes concerns the pattern of organization that is used to structure and order information

There are many patterns a writer can use to organize his/her ideas The specific pattern (or combination of patterns) chosen depends upon the particular topic and the objectives the writer has identified for the document There is no rule to follow in choosing a pattern of organization; one must simply think carefully about which pattern makes the most sense in helping the reader to better understand and remember the information There are many different ways of organizing the same information, and often two or more different organizational patterns are combined to create a final outline of information

Below is the description of the most commonly used patterns of organization for essays in which the writer presents an opinion, examines causes and effects, and outlines problems and solutions, which are the focus of this thesis These are (i) argument patterns, (ii) cause-effect patterns, and (iii) problem-solution patterns

(i) Argument Patterns

In an argumentative essay, the writer not only gives information but also presents an argument with the PROS (supporting ideas) and CONS (opposing ideas)

of an argumentative issue He/She needs to clearly take his/her stand and writes as if he/she is trying to persuade an opposing audience to adopt new beliefs or behavior

The primary objective is to persuade people to change beliefs that many of them do not want to change The argument pattern is effective for this kind of essay There are three possible organization pattern variables:

Body

CON idea 1 -> Refutation

CON idea 2 -> Refutation

CON idea 3 -> Refutation

Body

PRO idea 1 PRO idea 2 PRO idea 3

Table 1 Argument Patterns

In variables 4 and 5, the writer does not show his/her disagreement about the con ideas That is, he/she gives and supports the reasonable aspects of the con ideas

in the body In another way, he/she discusses the opposing ideas directly in the body paragraph and then gives alternatives to the con ideas to compromise in the conclusion

(ii) Cause-Effect Patterns

This pattern is used to show the different causes and effects of various conditions This pattern is particularly effective when writing a persuasive document

in which the writer traces the reasons why an event occurred, determines the results

of something, and predicts the results of an event or action

There are two major variations to this pattern: “block” organization and

“chain” organization In “block” organization, all the causes are discussed as a block

(in one, two or more paragraphs, depending on the number of causes), then all of the

effects are discussed as another block In “chain” organization, the writer discusses

a first cause and its effect, a second cause and its effect, a third cause and its effect, and so on Usually, each new cause is the result of the preceding effect The discussion of each new cause and its effect begins with a new paragraph

Suppose a writer's stated purpose is to explain the causes of conflict escalation and their effects He/she could organize the information in one of the following two ways Again, notice that either method could work equally well

Cause and Effect Pattern Example One: “Block” Organization

I Causes of Conflict Escalation

1 Expanding the issues

2 Personal attacks

II Effects of these causes

1 Lose focus on original issue

2 Cycle of defensive responses

3 Win-Lose orientation

4 Negative emotions

Cause and Effect Pattern Example Two: “Chain” Organization

I Cause: Expanding the issues

3 Effect: Lose focus on original issues

4 Effect: Cycle of defensive responses

II Cause: Personal attacks

5 Effect: Negative emotions

6 Effect: Win-Lose orientation

The type of cause and effect organization a writer chooses will depend on the topic Some topics are more easily organized one way, and some the other way A chain pattern is usually easier if the causes and effects are very closely interrelated A chain pattern also works better with smaller topics With larger topics, and when there is no direct cause and effect relationship, the block style is usually easier Some topics require a combination of block and chain organization

(iii) Problem-Solution Patterns

A problem-solution pattern divides information into two main sections, one that describes a problem and one that describes a solution This pattern is typically used in persuasive writing, where the writer's general purpose is to convince the reader to support a certain course of action The pattern is designed to compel the reader to make some kind of change in opinion or behavior by establishing that a problem exists, then providing a solution In the problem section, the writer identifies different aspects of the problem being discussed and offers evidence of these problems In the solution section, the writer identifies a potential solution and supports the effectiveness of this solution over others

For example, suppose a writer's stated purpose is to persuade his/her readers

to ride bicycles as their primary form of transportation First, the writer will attempt

to establish that common forms of motorized transportation create compelling problems that require a solution Then, he/she will show how the proposed solution - riding bikes - provides a beneficial alternative to driving

Problem-Solution Example

I Problem: Motorized Transportation

1 Increasing traffic congestion

2 Increasing pollution

3 Increasing "road rage" from traffic-related stress

II Solution: Riding Bicycles

4 Bike riding reduces the number of motorized vehicles in use

5 Bike riding is not a source of pollution

6 Bike riding has physical and psychological health benefits

1.2.3 Grammar and Mechanics

Bamberg (1984) supposes that grammatical or mechanical errors are also factors that interrupt the discourse flow or the reading process; therefore, a coherent text is the one that has few or no grammatical or mechanical errors This is a criterion

of a coherent essay in Bamberg‟s holistic coherence scale In this thesis, the following most common grammatical and mechanical errors are taken into consideration in the exercises on coherence

Grammar:

 Articles

 3rd

person singular „s‟ agreement in the present tense

 Verb tenses and aspects

1.3 An Overview on IELTS Writing Tasks

As stated in 101 Helpful Hints for IELTS by Adams and Peck (2001), there are two tasks in the writing section of IELTS Writing Task 1 is designed to test candidates‟ ability to interpret and present information that is given in short form, often as data within a diagram, graph, chart or table Writing Task 2 requires candidates to write an essay or a report of not less than 250 words on a given topic of general interest It can be either an argument regarding a topic or an account of a situation regarding a topic Different functions that candidates are frequently asked to perform in IELTs writing tests include:

o Providing general factual information

o Examining cause and effect

o Outlining a problem and presenting a solution

o Giving and justifying an opinion

o Agreeing and disagreeing an argument/proposition

o Evaluating ideas, evidence or argument

o Comparing and contrasting evidence or opinions

(Gibson, 2007: 185)

Coherence and cohesion are elements that are rated in both tasks However, Writing Task 2 is more important than Writing Task 1 Writing Task 2 counts more towards candidates‟ overall IELTS Writing Test Band Score than Writing Task 1 These are also the reason why only some important kinds of essays of Writing Task 2 are considered in this thesis besides the fact that this thesis is limited in time and number of pages

The next chapter is the system of exercises on coherence and cohesion built

on the basis of IELTS model essays that writers present an opinion, examine causes and effects, and outline problems and solutions

CHAPTER 2

EXERCISES ON COHERENCE AND COHESION DESIGNED ON THE

BASIS OF IELTS MODEL ESSAYS

2.1 Users of the Exercises

The exercises on coherence and cohesion designed on the basis of IELTS model essays are intended for intermediate students who start to learn IELTS essay writing They are preparing for taking IELTS in order to study abroad

These subjects are really in need of exercises on coherence and cohesion built

on the basis of model essays This is because one of the most important criteria of marking essays in IELTS is coherence and cohesion; however, it is the fact that most Vietnamese intermediate students who start to attend an IELTS writing course do not have any clues about how to write coherent IELTS essays as a result of focusing on studying vocabulary, grammar, or reading skill in order to pass school tests, high-school finals, university entrance examinations, which do not usually require them to write essays Another cause of this fact is that Vietnamese students are usually affected by the way they write Vietnamese compositions, which might not be highly rated in IELTS since the English rhetoric is different from the Asian or Vietnamese rhetoric (Oshima, and Hogue, 1999:50-51) As these students are aware of their lack and needs, they register for an IELTS writing course with the hope of being instructed how to write good essays It can be seen that a system of exercises on coherence and cohesion built on the basis of model essays might also be a good help

to them, but it has not been available until now

2.2 Aims and Objectives of the Exercises

To meet the need of intermediate students who start to learn IELTS essay writing, in this thesis the exercises designed on the basis of IELTS model essays aim

at helping students to write coherent IELTS essays To be more specific, the objectives of the exercises are aiding the students to understand and to master the

cues for coherent representation as synthesized and presented in the chapter of

Literature Review:

- the structure and organization of an essay and its paragraphs

- cohesive devices, and

- grammar and mechanics

Nonetheless, grammar and mechanics are not much focused in this thesis, for Vietnamese intermediate students are usually good at these

2.3 Uses of the Exercises

The exercises are intended to be used as a way for intermediate students who start to learn IELTS essay writing to self-teach how to write coherently or as a reference for teacher to teach these students about coherent IELTS essay writing

2.4 Approaches to Designing the Exercises

The exercises to be built in this study are intended to be used as a way for intermediate students who start to learn IELTS essay writing to self-teach how to write coherently or as a reference for teachers to teach these students about coherent IELTS essay writing; to put it another way, in this study designing exercises on essay coherence is considered to be similar to planning to teach how to write coherent essays Therefore, it is necessary that approaches to teaching English writing be considered to be applied for designing these exercises In this study Product Approach and Process Approach have been chosen on account of their features which are suitable to the subjects and the objectives of the exercises on coherence and cohesion built on the basis of model IELTS essays

2.4.1 Product Approach

As Evans and St John (1998) define, “the Product Approach to writing usually involves the presentation of a model text, which is analysed and then forms the basis of a task that leads to the writing of an exactly similar or a parallel text” Specifically, the Product Approach focuses on the linguistic knowledge, with attention on the appropriate use of vocabulary, syntax, and cohesive devices This approach aims at enabling students to produce similar texts Steele (2005) suggests a model of the Product Approach including four stages as follows:

Stage 1: Model texts

Model texts are read, and then features of the genre are highlighted For example, if studying a formal letter, students' attention may be drawn to the importance of paragraphing and the language used to make formal requests If studying a story, the focus may be on the techniques used to make the story interesting, and students focus on where and how the writer employs these techniques

Stage 2: Controlled Practice

This consists of controlled practice of the highlighted features, usually in isolation So if students are studying a formal letter, they may be asked to practise the language used to make formal requests, practising the 'I would be grateful if you would…' structure

Stage 3: Organisation of ideas

This stage is very important Those who favour this approach believe that the organisation of ideas is more important than the ideas themselves and as important as the control of language

Stage 4: The end result of the learning process

Students choose from a choice of comparable writing tasks Individually, they use the skills, structures and vocabulary they have been taught to produce the product; to show what they can do as fluent and competent users of the language

2.4.2 Process Approach

In the Process Approach, the focus of attention shifts from the finished product to the whole process of writing This approach views writing as “thinking” and “discovery” (Hedge, 2000) As Flower (1985) suggests, the thinking stage can follow the sequence below:

Generate ideas → Select ideas → Group the ideas → Order the ideas

According to Nguyen Bang and Nguyen Ba Ngoc (2001), the writing process

is shortened in the table below:

Stages Activities

Skimming or scanning a passage Brainstorming

Discussing a topic or questions Model analysis

Clustering with a key word, free association

Gap-filling Sequencing jumbled words Transformation writing Completing sentences Parallel sentences Guided writing:

Questions & answers Writing based on cued words Writing based on provided information

Free writing:

Writing about pictures Writing in response to a situation

Revising Editing Evaluating

Table 2: The Writing Process

2.4.3 Product vs Process Approaches- Features Applied for Designing the Exercises

Steel (2005) shortens the differences of Product and Process Approaches in the following table:

 Imitate model text

 Organization of ideas more

important than ideas themselves

 One draft

 Features highlighted including

controlled practice of those

features

 Individual

 Emphasis on end-product

 Text as a resource for comparison

 Ideas as starting point

 More than one draft

 More global, focus on purpose, theme, text type, i.e., reader is emphasized

 Collaborative

 Emphasis on creative process

Table 3: Product Approach vs Process Approach

The Product Approach can be used successfully to help intermediate students who begin learning to write coherent IELTS essays because it recognizes their needs for linguistic knowledge about texts to be given, i.e students will have a clear idea about the organization, cohesive devices, and grammar as well as mechanics of a particular essay through models In addition, it understands that imitation is one way

in which people learn, and this is especially true for beginners of English essay writing courses like the subjects of using the exercises in this study

However, the shortcoming of this approach is exposed in its own nature Using this approach often leads to a rather simplistic copying of the model text by only changing certain words from the original text to produce a new text It is a pure mechanical task, which prevents learners‟ creativity and motivation from writing and involves no real thought about the purpose of the writing, the readership or the expectation of discourse

Compared to the Product Approach, the Process Approach has undoubtedly made great improvements in the sense that it stimulates students to discover new ideas and new language forms to express ideas

Nevertheless, the Process Approach does not have the strong points that Product Process does To be more specific, the disadvantages of the Process Approach are that it gives insufficient importance to the kind of texts writers produce and why such texts are produced, and that it offers learners insufficient input, particularly in terms of linguistic knowledge

In short, the two approaches were integrated with each other when exercises were created in this study so that their strong points could be made use of and their weak points could be avoided The Product Approach was applied in the sense that model essays were used to analyse highlighted linguistic features and that the organization of ideas in the models were focused Besides, most of the features of the Process Approach, namely text as a resource for comparison, ideas as starting point, focus on purpose, theme, text type, and emphasis on creative process, were taken into account to design the exercises

2.5 Data for Designing the Exercises

Data for designing the exercises include model essays, the theory of coherence and cohesion, and some language items related to coherence and cohesion, all of which were collected, analysed, and synthesized from the books and websites listed in the references

2.6 Procedures of Designing the Exercises

The exercises in this study were created in some careful steps First, model IELTS essays, of which functions are presenting an opinion, examining causes and effects, and outlining problems and solutions, were chosen according to the criteria

of a fully coherent essay of Bamberg‟s holistic coherence scale They were selected from the website http://essay.bktit.org, and two books by Adams and Peck (2001), and Thanh Hải (2004) Then, cues for coherent representation existing in each essay were analysed and highlighted Next, they were manipulated for exercises After that, the author of this study tried doing these exercises to find out what was not reasonable to edit Finally, she gave the keys to the exercises and checked them carefully

2.7 Specifications of the Exercises (See the exercises in section 2.8)

2.7.1 Organization of the Exercises

As different functions of essays require writers to use different organization patterns and different cohesive devices, the exercises in this study were organized in three functions that candidates are most frequently asked to perform in IELTs writing tests, including:

- Presenting an opinion

- Examining causes and effects, and

- Outlining problems and solutions

In each function, exercises were ordered according to the activity sequences

of product approach and process approach to teaching English writing

The author of this study combined writing stages of both the Product Approach and the Process Approach and grouped the exercises in each function into the following stages:

Revising → Editing → Feedback & Correction

Organising the exercises in this order is supposed to be a great help to students

Stage 1 encourages students to discover ideas of their own or makes them become more creative and motivated from writing This stage prevents students from simply copying ideas from model essays

In stage 2, students can practise writing with controlled writing, guided wring, and then free writing As Doff (1998) and Cross (1991) claim, controlled and guided writing activities develop students‟ writing accuracy in language usage In this study, these activities enhance students‟ understanding about coherence and their ability to master the organization of an essay, cohesive devices and some grammatical and mechanic points Accordingly, students can learn to follow the way the writers of model essays organize their ideas, use cohesive devices, and write good sentences with correct grammar and mechanics, but they are not expected to copy ideas or to produce similar texts as in the Product Approach That is the reason why the free writing, in which students are free to write as they please, is added after students have done the exercises on the linguistic features of the model essays

Lastly, stage 3 includes an exercise that requires students to revise and edit by themselves or ask for feedback from a teacher or their friends This is to assist students to correct their essays and to recognize whether they really master what they have learnt from the exercises, so it also encourages students to review the knowledge from the exercises when they see they have made a number of mistakes

Besides, all of the exercises follow each other in a logic order, which helps students recognize, understand, and master elements that make an essay coherent and cohesive step by step

First of all, students are allowed to learn and practice with the structure and organization of an essay and its paragraph through a sequence of exercises like exercises from 1 to 6 in section 2.8 The main aim of these exercises is to help students understand how an essay that expresses the agreement or disagreement about an argument or proposition is constructed and organized Exercise 1, which asks students to answer some questions before reading the model essays, encourages them to think about how to organize an essay effectively on their own Next, exercise

2 involves rearranging jumbled sentences to make paragraphs of an essay, which requires them to think how to organize paragraphs logically Later, exercise 3 asks students questions about different parts of the introduction, the body and the conclusion Answers to these questions written in the columns of a table, which contain brief explanation about the functions of the parts of an essay and its paragraphs would aid students to have a clear image about the structure and organization Following exercise 3, exercise 4 requires students to put jumbled paragraphs in a correct order of an essay, which can be done by considering the relation among the paragraphs, the meaning of the paragraphs, and the functions of parts of an essay that they have learnt from exercise 3 After that, students are able to learn to know how to organize their essays effectively in different ways from exercise 5 by working with the questions that are similar to the ones in exercise 1 as reading three model essays, all of which are answers to an IELTS writing question

but have different organization patterns Finally, doing exercise 6, students can

compare their answers to exercise 1 with the key to exercise 5 and adjust them in an appropriate way so that they are able to make a good outline Exercises from 14 to

17, and from 24 to 27 have similar orders and aims One difference is that they do not involve argument patterns, but they are in regard to other kinds of organization patterns: cause-effect and problem-solution patterns

Following the sequences of exercises on essay and paragraph structure, exercises on cohesive devices, grammar and mechanics have a more flexible order However, to some extent this order is still logic in a way that students can start to learn the general use of cohesive devices, grammar and mechanics one by one, then practise mastering them, and in the end do a synthetic exercise Particularly, students

do exercise 7 to have a general understanding about how conjunctions and references

connect ideas After that, they do exercises from 8 to 9 to master the use of these Similarly, exercise 10 helps students to learn about lexical cohesive devices Finally, they do exercise 11, which is a synthetic exercise on collocations, grammar and mechanics Exercises from 18 to 21, and from 28 to 33 is similar in this order to exercises from 7 to 11 However, they focus more on the features of cause-effect and problem-solution essays For example, exercise 19 asks students to add the conjunctions and markers of cause and effect from the model essay to a table; exercises from 30 to 33 are about collocations and grammar points that usually appear in a problem-solution pattern

After having done the exercises that help to recognize cues of coherent representation from essays and to practise using them skillfully, students have a chance of writing complete essays by themselves through exercises 12, 13, 22, 23,

34, and 35 At this time, hopefully, students can write coherently thanks to the previous exercises

2.7.2 Types of the Exercises (See the exercises in section 2.8)

Basing on the features of the Process Approach as Steele (2005) points out and on activities of process writing listed by Nguyen Bang and Nguyen Ba Ngoc (2001), the author of this study has decided on the following types of exercises as they are suitable to the objectives of the exercises

o Type 1: Answering questions: exercises 1, 14, and 24

This type of exercise can draw forth and structure students‟ own responses Indeed, questions can stimulate students to think, to explore linguistic features from models by themselves, and to give their own answers This suits the aims of exercises 1, 14, and 24, which are built to urge students to find out the theme of the writing task, to determine the way to answer the writing task question, to brainstorm ideas, and to choose an organization pattern for their own essay

o Type 2: Rearranging jumbled sentences to make paragraphs of an essay: exercise 2

o Type 3: Rearranging jumbled paragraphs in a correct order of an essay: exercise 4, 15

In exercises of types 2 and 3, sentences or paragraphs are jumbled to imitate the fact that ideas usually come to students‟ head in confusion Therefore, these exercises help students to improve the skill of organising ideas logically when they write

o Type 4: Dividing a sample essay into paragraphs: exercise 25

This type of exercise requires students to base on transition signals or linking words and to find out the logicality and the unity to determine the starting or ending points of paragraphs This is appropriate for the aim of bettering the skill of organizing paragraphs of an essay and enhancing the comprehension about the use of some cohesive devices

o Type 5: Writing answers to questions about a model essay in the columns of

„sentences‟ and „summary of ideas‟ of a table following the questions: exercise 3

Answering to questions by writing them in columns of a table, which contain brief explanation about the functions of the parts of an essay and its paragraphs would help students to have a clear image about the structure and organization

o Type 6: Comparing students‟ answers to the questions in a previous exercise with the keys to another exercise and adjusting them in an appropriate way: exercises 5, 17, and 27

This type of exercises allows students to find out an appropriate way to organize their own essays but does not force them to copy everything of models This prevents students from losing their creativity and their own choice

o Type 7: Gap-filling: exercises 7, 28

Gap-filling exercises require students to try to fill in blanks from their knowledge of English and the sense they can make of the passage The underlined words or words listed in a box make it easier In this way, after doing exercises 7 and

28, students can reinforce their knowledge of conjunctions and references, and they can learn to know that these cohesive devices can make essays cohesive

o Type 8: Finding some elements and making a table of those elements: exercises 9, 10, 19, and 20

Doing these exercises, students can learn how cohesive devices are used in the model essays first, and then they can have a list of conjunctions, references, synonyms, antonyms, hyponyms, and general words for their later review

o Type 9: Searching from model essays and looking up more words or phrases that have similar meanings: exercises 29 and 31

Similar to type 8, this type of exercises can guide students how to enrich their store of synonyms and collocations by searching them from model essays and from a dictionary or even from their own knowledge

o Type 10: Matching some elements and then looking for more ones from a model essay and then grouping them into categories: exercise 30

Matching is a way to review words or phrases that go together like collocations Furthermore, doing exercise 30, students can build their own store of collocations by looking for more ones from a model essay and then grouping them into categories

o Type 11: Underlining and completing a language box: Exercise 33

Underlying words or phrases highlights what to learn, so students can pay attention to how the language items such as collocations are used in the model essay, and a language box can help them not only to remember easily but also to review in the future

o Type 12: Identifying and correcting mistakes: exercise 18

This type of exercise derives from the fact that no one can write something perfect for the first time; hence, doing this exercise can improve students‟ skill of identifying and correcting mistakes for their future edit In addition, when doing exercise 18, students can pay attention to the correct use of some grammatical and mechanic points

o Type 13: Paraphrasing: exercise 21

Paraphrasing is a method for students to practise expressing the same ideas in different ways Doing exercise 21, students can get familiar to different structures to express cause-effect relationship with some collocations in cause-effect essays

o Type 14: Writing a complete essay: exercises 12, 22, 34

This type of exercises enables students to produce their own product by applying what they have learnt about essay organization, cohesive devices and grammar and mechanics – elements that make an essay coherent and cohesive Furthermore, this activity helps students improve their writing skill in the form of a complete product

o Type 15: Revising and editing students‟ own work with the help of a checklist: exercises 13, 23, 35

This type of exercises forms a good habit of bettering their products every time students write Especially, a checklist attracts students what to pay much attention in order to make an essay coherent and cohesive Accordingly, their essays can get better and better

2.7.4 Sources of the Exercises (See the exercises in section 2.8)

Exercise 1:

Hints 77, 78 and 79, which present steps to start writing an IELTS essay, in

101 Helpful Hints for IELTS Academic Module by Adams G & Terry Peck (2003)

are the main bases for the author of this study to build the four questions of exercise

1

Hint 77 presents Step 1 – Analyse the question – is the base for question 1 Hint 78 presents Step 2 – Think about an answer – is the base for questions 2 and 3

Hint 79 presents Step 3 – Plan the answer – is the base for question 4 In addition, patterns 1, 3, and 4 suggested for students to choose were taken from the website http://www.buowl.boun.edu.tr/ students/ types% 20of%2 0essays/ ARGUMENTATIVE % 20ESSAY.htm, and patterns 2, 5, and 6 were added by the author of this study after she had analysed model essays from the book by Adams G

& Terry Peck (2003) and from the website http://essay.bktit.org