The Role of Instructing Substitution as a Kind of Grammatical Cohesion on Its True Identification and Creation of Modal, Reporting and Conditional Contexts

Abstract

In an effort with a two-fold research question regarding the role of teaching substitution as a kind of grammatical cohesion on the true identification of confusing substitution elements with cohesive or noncohesive roles in different contexts and also the production of modal, reporting and conditional contexts through clausal substitution acquaintance, the following procedures were taken. First 120 male and female EFL students were selected from Iranshahr Azad University. Having administered the language proficiency test, researchers selected 80 students as intermediate subjects according to their TOEFL band scores. First, pretests of cohesion identification (substitution) and production of modal, reporting and conditional environments were administered to both control and experimental groups. Then, the experimental group was exposed to the teaching of the above-said cohesive device. Finally, post-tests of substitution elements identification and modal, reporting and conditional contexts production through clausal substitution familiarity were administered. The results showed that cohesive device treatment helped students on the true identification of substitution elements. Another finding proved that EFL students may have no difficulty in learning certain rules or classification of rules and application of their clausal substitution knowledge in creating modal, reporting and conditional contexts. Our findings can have implications for the field of language learning and teaching by deepening our understanding of the nature of the cohesive devices used by Iranian intermediate EFL learners in the process of reading comprehension and also applying their knowledge of cohesive devices not only in reading skill but also in speaking and writing skills to have more fluent and accurate speakers, writers and successful readers.