Abstract:

Introduction:
Writing, as a communicative tool, plays as important role in learning a foreign language like English. Since effective writing is considered as a problem for EFL students, a need is felt to figure out some techniques that might be helpful for learners in order to improve their writing performance. One of these strategies is using metadiscourse markers in writing.
Aim: In spite of the rich literature, metadiscourse has not received enough attention by EFL teachers and applied linguists. The intent of this study was to examine the relationship between metadiscourse instruction and EFL learners’ writing achievement.

Methodology:
Design:
The present article carried out quantitative and qualitative approaches to address the main question.

Participants:
The participants of this study were 58 female students aged between 20 -25 years. To determine their level of English proficiency, Online Cambridge English Placement Test was assigned. Then, the mean score of the test was calculated. Based on the results of the test, 36 students were assigned to intermediate group. These learners were randomly divided into two groups: experimental and control. In each group, 18 students were assigned.
Instruments: The pretest, including two topics, was administered to evaluate these 2 groups' initial knowledge about metadiscourse markers. Then, only experimental group received metadiscourse instruction, using Hyland (2005) taxonomy for metadiscourse. To explore the influence of metadiscourse on students’ writing performance, both groups took part in writing post-test with the same topics as in pretest.

Procedures:
After measuring their initial knowledge about metadiscourse markers, in 8 successive sessions within a month, only learners of experimental group were exposed to metadiscourse explicit instruction. After this instructional period, both groups were asked to write a 250 words essay about the same topics to compare the writing performance of learners. Finally, three raters who had taught writing courses were asked to assess learners’ papers.

Scoring:
The assessment was according to Jacobs et al. (1981) scale. At the end, the average score for these three raters was considered as the final score for each paper.

Results:
First, the mean score, standard deviation and standard error of pretest and post-test of both groups were calculated. The pretest’s mean score of the experimental group (9.77) has improved to 15.33. To examine the probability of significant difference between the results of both groups, a paired t-test was conducted. The pretests’ mean difference of both experimental and control groups were not statistically significant; while mean difference of post-test was extremely statistically different (p< 0.05). The mean scores of post-tests of these groups indicated the fact that experimental group (6.33) outperformed control group (o.25) in post-test. A comparison between writing pretest and post-test results showed that using explicit metadiscourse instruction would have impact on EFL learners’ writing performance.

Conclusion:
Findings of the current study revealed that there exists a significant relationship between using explicit instruction of metadiscourse and EFL learners’ writing achievement. This research might have some pedagogical implications to pay more attention to rhetorical features like metadiscourse markers to help EFL students write more organized coherent and effective texts.

Keywords:

EFL writing, teaching writing, metadiscourse markers, explicit instruction, Hyland (2005) taxonomy.