A Survey On The Current Situation Of The Use Of Connectives In Junior High School Students' English Writing

Writing plays a significant role in English learning and fully reflects learners' writing ability.Discourse cohesion is an important part of it.As a means of discourse cohesion and coherence,connective is indispensable in English writing teaching.So,it is helpful for English writing teaching to study the current situation of the use of connectives in junior high school students' English writing and explore its reasons.Based on the theory of cohesion and coherence,this thesis takes the eighth-graders in a junior high school as research subjects,collects 380 samples of English compositions in six times successively,makes statistics of connectives and divides them into high-level group and low-level group;by analyzing the samples,explores the frequency,variety and accuracy of the use of connectives in junior high school students' English writing as well as the features of the use of connectives in high-level and low-level groups.It collects 120 valid questionnaires,interviews are conducted with five English teachers,five students from the high-level group and five from the low-level group and further analyzes the factors affecting the use of connectives in junior high school students' English writing from the perspectives of teachers,students and textbooks through questionnaires and interviews.The results show that the frequency of the use of connectives in junior high school students' English writing is relatively high and the types of its use cover the eight categories.However,the use of connectives is rather single and the accuracy needs to be improved.The frequency in high-level group is higher than that in low-level group.The main factors affecting its use are students' indefinite perception of the significance and usage of connectives,teachers' and students' neglect of connectives,lack of fully utilizing textbooks and specific instruction and training of connectives,and teachers' inadequate correction.Combining with the results,this thesis puts forward some implications,hoping to improve the use of connectives and be of enlightenment for English writing teaching.