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Cohesive Errors In Writing Among ESL Pr
English Language Teaching; Vol. 7, No. 11; 2014
ISSN 1916-4742
E-ISSN 1916-4750
Published by Canadian Center of Science and Education

Cohesive Errors in Writing among ESL Pre-Service Teachers
Lisa S. L. Kwan1 & Melor Md Yunus1
1

Faculty of Education, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia

Correspondence: Lisa Kwan Su Li, Faculty of Education, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), 43600 Bangi,
Selangor, Malaysia. Tel: 60-169-121-965. E-mail: lisakwan24@gmail.com
Received: June 24, 2014 doi:10.5539/elt.v7n11p130 Accepted: July 31, 2014

Online Published: October 23, 2014

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/elt.v7n11p130

Abstract
Writing is a complex skill and one of the most difficult to master. A teacher’s weak writing skills may negatively influence their students. Therefore, reinforcing teacher education by first determining pre-service teachers’ writing weaknesses is imperative. This mixed-methods error analysis study aims to examine the cohesive errors in the writing of English as a Second Language (ESL) pre-service teachers of differing language proficiency levels—Medium and High-level, as indicated by the band levels achieved in the Malaysian University English
Test (MUET). 200-word narrative essays were collected from 30 final-year ESL pre-service teachers from UKM via email. The study found that the Medium-level pre-service teachers made the most errors in lexical cohesion, reference and conjunction cohesion categories. However, High-level pre-service teachers made more errors in lexical cohesion, ellipsis and reference. Collocation proved the most difficult form of cohesion for both groups of pre-service teachers, while High-level pre-service teachers made more errors in ellipsis than the Medium-level pre-service teachers. Nevertheless, this still indicates that the pre-service teachers’ overall mastery of cohesive writing is insufficient. Therefore, the teaching of these cohesive devices should be further fortified in the



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