Usage of Grammatical Cohesive Devices in Paragraph Writing among Foundation-Year Medical Students at a University in Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Before entering a medical college, Saudi pre-medical freshmen study a Foundation-Year English language course for their English language enhancement. Writing is one of the language skills taught in English language courses at the Foundation-Year level. This study investigates Foundation-Year medical students’ difficulties using cohesive grammatical devices for paragraph writing. The study attaches considerable significance to exploring the pre-medical freshmen’s problems using cohesive grammatical devices while writing paragraphs in English. The sample of sixty-seven student-written paragraphs was chosen randomly from the Foundation-Year medical students. The paragraphs were analyzed to determine students’ difficulties using cohesive grammatical devices. A qualitative research approach was carried out, and Halliday and Hasan’s (1976) framework was adopted for analyzing cohesive devices, i.e., reference, conjunction, ellipsis, and substitution. The findings showed that Saudi pre-medical students at the Foundation-Year level could not use cohesive grammatical devices effectively. The study recommended a need to introduce an appropriate writing skill module in the Foundation-Year English courses and improve the teaching strategies to overcome the students’ deficiencies in writing paragraphs.