The Impact of Teaching Meta Discoursal Markers on Iranian ESP Learners Expository Writing

To produce a coherent piece of discourse is an interactive process that requires writers to draw upon different kinds of communicative and grammatical knowledge (Sanders and Noordman, 2001). In fact, as Nunan (1991) states, writing is not only the process of putting words on a paper, rather is the resulting product of that process. With the status of English as an international and universal language and the growth in the application of English, an increasing number of second/foreign language learners are involved in vocations that require them to write compositions. One interesting area of investigation in second/foreign language writing is to see how Metadiscourse mrkers are tackled by non-native writers of English in compositions. Considering the significant role of metadiscourse markers in expository writing, the researcher of the present study made attempts to find out the effects of teaching metadiscourse markers on Iranian ESP leaners expository writing. In order to investigate the research variables through a quasi-experimental design, 32 male and female students with the age range of 20 to 25 years old studying Biology at B.S. level at Karaj and Parand Branch Azad Universities were selected as a homogenous sample through administration of an Oxford Placement Test and then were randomly assigned into 2 groups as experimental and control groups each having 16 learners. Before starting the treatment process, a pretest on writing performance was administered to assess learners prior knowledge of metadiscourse markers. The control group received the traditional instruction, while the experimental group received explicit instruction of metadiscourse markers. Learners in experimental group got familiar with the meaning of metadiscourse and its two main categories, i.e. textual metadiscourse and interpersonal metadiscourse, based on the taxonomy developed by Hyland (1998a). At the end of the experiment, a posttest was administered to assess learners achievement after treatment. Jacob s Profile for Writing Scores was used to assess learners writing performance. The results of this study revealed a significant difference in learners writing scores. That is, the learners in experimental group performed better in posttest of writing than that of pretest. The findings of this study also revealed that the metadiscourse instruction was effective in helping the language learners perform better in writing

کلیدواژه ها:

Discourse markers ، metadiscourse ، expository writing ، ESP