Cohesion in the Essays of Final Year Senior High School Students in Accra Academy

Abstract

This study investigated cohesion in the texts of final-year senior high school students. The purpose was to determine the types of cohesive devices that the students use, with emphasis on inter-sentential cohesion, as well as the ones they have problems with. In addition, the study aimed at ascertaining the extent to which students' problems with the use of cohesive devices can be attributed to the strategies teachers employ in teaching cohesion. Forty-five essays written by final-year students were analyzed based on Halliday and Hasan's (1976) classification of cohesion which are reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction and lexical cohesion. The findings showed that students have problems using reference, conjunction and lexical cohesion that they depend on to write cohesive texts. Learners either misuse or overuse these linguistic tools in trying to achieve cohesion. This confirmed the results of previous studies. Also, eight teachers of English were made to answer questionnaires and also identify cohesive devices in a short paragraph, to determine whether the way cohesion is taught contributes to students’ difficulty in using cohesive devices. It was found out that, they were able to identify all the intra-sentential ties, but failed to identify the inter-sentential ones which were the focus of this study. Another revelation was that the teacher-centered methodology employed in teaching cohesion did not offer learners the opportunity to actively participate in the learning process. This study concludes that, students' problems with writing cohesive texts are attributed to their limited knowledge about the use of cohesive devices, lack of vocabulary and the way teachers teach cohesion. It is recommended that

teachers of English should pay more attention to the teaching of vocabulary particularly, synonyms, collocation and superordinate terms to increase students’ vocabulary stock. Active learner strategies which ensure students’ active participation in the learning process, coupled with adequate practice work will enable learners master the skill of writing cohesive texts.