A Study On The Use Of Conjunctions In EFL Writing Of Senior High School Students

When an English composition is evaluated, coherence in the relationships among sentences and paragraphs of the composition is considered to be one of the good qualities. As a matter of fact, a composition can achieve coherence by several means which include, at least, using conjunctions. However, few studies have been done on the effect of using conjunctions in English writing of Chinese students, especially in a senior high school.This thesis investigates the effect of conjunctions in EFL writing in a senior middle school in Kunming by means of collection of compositions and questionnaire. The 60 participants are from senior grade two of a middle school located in the east suburb of Kunming city. The collected data have been analyzed through SPSS (Statistical Package of Social Science, Version 11.0). Quantitative and qualitative methods were employed in this study.Three questions were designed in this research: First, what is the relationship between the use of conjunctions and scores of English writing of senior high school students? Second, is there a significant difference between a higher level writing group and lower level writing group concerning the conjunctions used in senior high school students' writing? Third, what are the problems which are likely to occur in the field of using conjunctions in senior high school students' writing?Results showed that: The use of conjunctions has positive effect on senior high school students' EFL writing. This study also showed that there is a significant difference between higher level group and lower level group in terms of numbers and kinds of conjunctions used in their compositions. In addition, the study showed that students tended to overuse addictive devices, misuse adversatives and shortage of necessary...