An Empirical Study Of Discourse Markers As English Writing Strategies For Senior High School Students Based On Adaptation Theory

As one of the essential skills for English learners,English writing is an important but weak part in learning English.Many problems are often found in senior high school students' writing,and one of the most serious problems is poor discourse incoherence.Discourse markers are important and common connective devices in English writing.Thus,using proper discourse markers can not only promote discourse coherence effectively,but also promote the contextual correlates of adaptability,so as to achieve the language user's communicative purpose.Meanwhile,in The English Curriculum Standards of General Senior High Schools,using discourse markers or other linguistic means to create logical links is considered as a basic communicative skill.In addition,although much attention has been paid to discourse markers in English writing,and most studies explore how discourse markers in English writing are employed by university students,few studies on discourse markers as writing strategies have been reported.Therefore,this paper,based on the Linguistic Adaptation Theory,studies on how discourse markers as writing strategies can benefit senior high school students in improve their awareness of using discourse markers as well as the quality of their English writing.Two parallel classes from senior three of an ordinary high school in Xiamen are chosen as the participants,one of which is treated as control class and taught with traditional method in English writing,while another treated as experimental class and trained with discourse marker strategies.Through a questionnaire,an educational experiment and an interview,the purpose of this study is to verify the feasibility and effectiveness of the strategy training of discourse markers in English writing.To be specific,this study is to answer four questions:(1)Do senior high school students have the strategy awareness of discourse markers in English writing?(2)How are discourse markers in English writing used by senior high school students?(3)Is their any correlation between the use of discourse markers and writing quality?(4)Can the strategy training of discourse markers improve students' writing coherence,writing quality and their awareness of using discourse markers in English writing?In this study,after taking a pre-test together with the control class,the experimental class received a 16-week strategy training of discourse markers.In the training process,at first,all the categories of discourse markers were explained one by one for the students in the experimental class so as to increase their language input.Then,the teacher assigned some related exercises toenhance the output,such as cloze,translation and so on.Finally,students of both the experimental class and control class took a post-test,and nine students of different levels in writing from the experimental class were interviewed.The findings of this study are as follows:(1)Senior high school students have a certain awareness of using discourse markers in English writing,however,their awareness is still at a low level.(2)Senior high school students can employ some basic discourse markers,esp.elaborative markers and sequential markers,in English writing.However,some discourse markers are overused or misused,while others are used inadequately.(3)The frequency,the number of categories of discourse markers in the students' English writing and the number of misuses are highly correlated with writing quality.(4)After 16-week training,the strategy awareness of discourse markers in the experimental class was found significantly higher than that in the control class.Also,the frequency and the number of categories of discourse markers in their writing increased,while the number of misuses of discourse markers decreased.All these results show that the strategy training of discourse markers in English writing for senior high school students is feasible and effective.Finally,to improve students' writing structural objects of adaptability,contextual correlates of adaptability and dynamics of adaptability,suggestions are made for teaching English writing in senior high school: conduct a strategy training of discourse markers in English writing,encourage students to learn and practice all kinds of discourse markers in writing,and add more discourse markers and their relevant instructions in textbooks.