资源描述:
《Coherence and the Teaching of EFL Writing》由会员上传分享,免费在线阅读,更多相关内容在学术论文-天天文库。
1、CoherenceandtheTeachingofEFLWriting(中山大学外国语学院2001级研究生姜智慧)Writingisoneofthefourbasicabilities(listening,speaking,readingandwriting)thatanEnglishlearnerasaforeignlanguagelearnershouldhave.Butwritingwellisnotaneasytask.Anexcellentwritershouldhavenotonlyagoodcommandofgrammar,but
2、alsoshouldknowhowtomakehiscompositioncoherentinstructureandcontent.MyexperienceinteachingwritingtoundergraduatesatCentralSouthUniversityshowsthatincoherenceisarecurringprobleminthestudents’writingandcanbeamajorobstacletotheirsuccessinwritingclasses.“Icannotfollowyourargument
3、”and“Idonotunderstandwhatyouaresaying”arejusttwoofthecommentswrittenonstudent’spaperstoindicatetheinabilityofthepaperstobeunderstoodbytheirteachers.Unfortunately,unlikegrammaticalerrorswhichcanbeeasilycorrected,errorsincoherencearemoredifficulttohandleastheyinvolveachunkofun
4、its,suchasaseriesofsentencesandparagraphs.MostESLteachersmaybelievethattheyhaveasenseofwhatcoherenceis,buttheyoftendiscusscoherencewiththeirstudentsinvagueterms.Asaresult,studentsdonothaveaclearunderstandingoftheconceptofcoherence,oftenfocusingonlyonerrorsatsentencelevelwhen
5、askedtorevisetheirownworkorthatoftheircolleagues.Coherenceisanareathatdeservesteacher’sattention.Thispaperaimsatmakingstudentsunderstandwhatcoherenceisandawareoftheirerrorsinwritingwhichtheydidnotpayanyattentiontobefore.AndIhopethispaperwillbealsobeneficialtoteachingofEFLwri
6、ting.First,itisnecessarytogiveacleardefinitionofcoherence.Whatiscoherence?Coherencecanbegenerallyviewedintwoaspects:test-basedandreader-basedcoherence(Johns,1986).Text-basedcoherencereferstothefeaturesassociatedwiththeinternalstructureofthetextitself.Itisatextualphenomenon,l
7、inguisticdevices,whichiscloselyconnectedwiththeformofthetext.Reader-basedcoherenceisassociatedwiththemeaningfulaspectofwriter-readerinteraction.CoherenceandtextAtextisdistinguishedfromanon-textbyitstexture.Thetextureisprimarilyprovidedbycohesion,whichisasemanticconcept,which
8、referstorelationsofmeaningthatexistinthetext,andthatdefineitasatextcohesion