Teaching coherence and cohesion to Chinese EFL undergraduates: a concept-based classroom intervention

Abstract

Despite the importance of coherence and cohesion to effective writing, few studies have examined how these concepts can function as a psychological tool for thinking and writing. To advance this line of inquiry, we presented a mixed-methods research that employed the Concept-based Language Instruction (C-BLI) to teach coherence and cohesion to Chinese English as Foreign Language (EFL) learners, with an aim to examine changes in learners' conceptual understandings and writing performance following the intervention. Data sources included written texts, metalinguistic knowledge tests as well as learning process data from four focal students. Quantitative pretest-posttest comparisons revealed substantial improvements in learners' conceptual understanding, whereas no statistically significant changes were observed in overall writing quality or coherence and cohesion. Qualitative analyses of the focal students’ learning data showed that the learners drew on their knowledge repertoire and metaphorical thinking to appropriate the target concepts. The focal students also demonstrated emerging changes in writing practices, including greater attention to the alignment between topic sentence and supporting evidence and logical propositional development, as well as occasional attempts to apply conceptual knowledge in revision. However, the focal students did not consistently use the target concepts to regulate their writing process. Collectively, these findings suggested a potentially interconnected, but non-synchronous, uneven relationship between conceptual knowledge growth and writing changes.