A comparison of writing improvement in a traditional approach class and a process approach class as measured through contextual cohesive devices

Abstract

This study attempted to find if the process approach to writing instruction helped intermediate level EFL learners to improve their written work, particularly with respect to cohesive characteristics of their texts, better than a traditional approach. A total of twenty five EFL learners participated in the study. Because Halliday and Hasan's four types of external conjunctive cohesive devices (additive, adversative, causal, temporal) contribute to textual cohesion, they were chosen as a means of measuring students' improvement from the pre- to the post-test. Eight of the students were in the process class and seventeen of them were in the traditional class. Results indicated that (1) EFL students seem to profit from a more structured, traditional approach than the process approach to writing instruction; (2) there is a low correlation between the holistic measurement and the countings of external CCDs used by tthe students in their written work; (3) motivation of the students towards learning a language, and the way the teachers handle the approaches in their own teaching are the moderating factors determining the success of one approach to teaching writing or the other.