A Suggested Metacognitive-Based Approach to Developing Master Students’ Cohesion and Coherence in EFL Argumentative Essay Writing

Abstract

Writing is considered as an essential skill that English as a foreign language (hereafter, EFL) leaners should master in order to produce accurate, or at least readable, pieces of work. Yet, many EFL learners claim that writing is difficult to learn as they face many hindrances mainly with cohesion and coherence. The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of metacognitive-based strategy writing instruction in developing EFL essay cohesion and coherence. To this end, a pre-experimental research was conducted with first-year EFL Master students at the English Department in the University of Tlemcen. Different research instruments were used to gather data: pre-test, post-test and stimulated recall protocol. The collected data were analysed using a mixed methods approach, that is, both quantitatively and qualitatively. After analysing data, the main findings indicated writing obstacles with cohesion and coherence that most first-year EFL Master students encounter. The other finding which may be worth mentioning is that longer strategy training length would make it evident that explicit metacognitive-strategy instruction can develop EFL essay writing cohesion and coherence.