Abstract:

The present experimental study investigated the effects of instruction on the use and appropriation of the coordinating conjunctions (i.e., for, and, nor, but, so, or, yet) among college freshman who are studying in an ELT (English Language Teaching) department in Turkey. 60 students (45 F, 15 M) participated in the study. The participants were randomly assigned into control and experimental groups. Both groups were given a pre-test on writing paragraphs and the appropriate use of coordinating conjunctions. During the treatment process, the experimental group was explicitly taught about the uses of coordinating conjunctions in detail for six weeks in addition to their routine of instruction on paragraphs and essay writing. On the other hand, control group received instruction on writing better paragraphs and essays without any special emphasis oncoordinating conjunction use. The participants were asked to write two essays at the end of the instruction that were analyzed as the post-test data. The appropriate use of the target structures were analyzed to see if the treatment group demonstrated any difference in using coordinating conjunctions effectively or not.

The findings of the study revealed that among the seven coordinating conjunctions “and” was the most frequently used in both groups. “Or” ranked the second, “but” ranked the third and “so” was the fourth. The use of “for”, “nor” and “yet” was not common by the students in the control group and the treatment group used all types of coordinating conjunctions in varying frequencies. Our study reiterated the need of formal instruction in some difficult grammatical structures and coordinating conjunctions might be one of them (Izzo, 1994). Detailed analysis of the use of coordinating conjunctions will be given with specific reference to each conjunction during the presentation.

Keywords:

Teaching writing, coordinating conjunctions, preference, EFL.