The Impact of Discourse Marker Instruction on Fluency, Accuracy, and Complexity Improvement of Iranian Intermediate EFL Learners

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to investigate the impact of discourse marker (DM) instruction on fluency, accuracy, and complexity improvement of Iranian intermediate EFL learner’s writing. To this aim, among the two hundred forth year English major learners in Dezful university, Iran, fifty of them who were in the intermediate level, based on the scoring system of the university, were recruited. They were given a topic to write before intervention. Then, the fifty participants passed through twenty-hour instruction on micro and macro DMs, based on Belles-Furtuno’s (2004) classification of discourse markers. The mentioned classification included both sentential and supra sentential markers. In the process of explicit instruction (EI) of DMs, they were given various exercises and activities to apply DMs and learn the function and usage of these units and input flood (IF) was performed along with corrective feedback (CF) with the help of the teacher with their mistakes and misunderstandings of DMs. After intervention, they were given another topic to write to examine if EI+IF of DMs could help them improve fluency, accuracy, and complexity of their writing. To quantify the results the Wolfe-Quintero (1998) method was used and it was unveiled that all the three components of writing improved after intervention, which practically means instruction of DMs could enhance learner’s writing in the three aspects. The findings can be used by teachers and syllabus designers to consider DMs as one of the most crucial components in writing courses.