The Effect of Textual Metafunction on the Iranian EFL Learners’ Writing Performance

Abstract

This study is devoted to the effect of ‘textual metafunction’ on the levels of coherence and cohesion in the Iranian EFL learners’ English writing performance. Sixty Iranian intermediate EFL learners who were adult females participated in this study were randomly divided into two groups; experimental, and control. They were given a writing pre-test. Then both groups’ subjects attended an essay writing class, two sessions per week, for a ten-week term; however, while the experimental group was taught how to write a standard three-paragraph essay in English, and apply the textual metafunction in it, the control group was only taught how to write a standard three-paragraph essay. After the completion of the instructional period, both groups were given a writing post-test in which they were asked to write a standard three-paragraph essay on a subject. The analytic scoring scale of ‘Hungarian School-Leaving English Examination Reform’ (2001, as cited in Tankó, 2001) was employed by three independent raters for rating the writing samples. A ‘t-test’ on the mean scores of both groups indicated a significant difference between the scores of the post-tests, meaning that the textual metafunction was significantly effective in the experimental group’s writing task. Moreover, while the mean scores of the control group’s pre-post tests were the same, the mean score of the experimental group’s post-test was higher than that of the pre-test, meaning that textual metafunction increased the levels of cohesion and coherence in their writing task.