Promoting discouse structure levels in EFL writing through reading paradigms

Abstract

Achieving a well-organized written discourse is a constant challenge to foreign language students because of several reasons. The present study sets out to investigate the extent to which comprehension of discourse structure levels accounts for competence in EFL writing organization. It strives at enhancing students’ awareness about the significance of discourse macrostructure and microstructure in writing through reading as the main source of language input. Accordingly, it is hypothesized that EFL students who are trained to use macrostructure and microstructure analysis would exhibit better overall text organization and that incorporating reading paradigms to teach writing and aspects of discourse structure levels in particular would trigger positive attitudes among teachers and students alike. The study has been conducted with two writing classes assigned to an experimental group and a control group. To compare the subjects’ performance in terms of the effective use of discourse structure levels, a pre-test and a post-test have been administered in the form of in-class expository essays. Following the collection of the post-test essays, a questionnaire has been given to the experimental group subjects to mainly elicit their opinions about the significance of reading in the comprehension of discourse structure levels. Furthermore, a questionnaire has been administered to written expression teachers to find out about their teaching writing practices regarding discourse organization and to elicit their views about the incorporation of reading in teaching discourse structure. The results obtained from the t-test calculation have demonstrated a significant improvement of the experimental group in all aspects of discourse structure- introduction organization, body organization, conclusion organization, thematic structure patterns, cohesive devices, and coherence relations- while the control group has actually lowered its scores in body organization, and has made a significant improvement in conclusion organization and insignificant improvement in the other aspects. The study also has indicated that both students and teachers favour the incorporation of reading in writing, especially if it is integrated to promote aspects of discourse structure levels.