Aim: to help make students aware of the meaning of different

categories of conjunctions

Target Audience: students

Relevance to General Training Writing Task 2

IELTS:

Organisation: groups

Materials needed: Worksheet ; a discursive topic written on the board

supplied by the teacher or the students (e.g. Discuss the
advantages and disadvantages of Internet cafes).

1. Ask students to match the lists of conjunctions to their function, then when
they have finished discuss their answers and give feedback.

2. Ask students to add to each category any other suitable conjunctions they
can think of.
3. Ask students for their answers and list correct ones on the board in their
categories.
4. Ask students to look at the discursive topic and note down any ideas they
have for the advantages and disadvantages, as well as any examples of
them.
5. Ask students for their ideas for the advantages and examples of them.
Note four of them under ‘advantages’ on the board, together with the
examples . Then do the same for ‘disadvantages and examples of these.
6. Ask students, one at a time, to construct an ‘oral composition’ on this topic
from the board i.e. one student starts with the opening sentence of the
introduction, a second student continues the introduction, a third student
gives the first advantage, a fourth an example of it etc. As they talk, point
at the conjunctions to ensure they incorporate them where necessary.
7. Ask the students to do the same activity as in 6 in small groups.
8. Ask the students to write the composition individually for homework.
Different Kinds of Conjunctions in Writing - Worksheet

Here are some conjunctions that are common in English neutral and formal
writing. They are grouped according to their function. What is their function?
Match one of the functions A- F against the number for each group.

1. To add information 2. To compare 3. To introduce

information examples

4. To introduce a 5. To contrast 6. To sequence points

conclusion information

A Firstly, next, finally,

B What’s more, in addition

C Whereas, in comparison with ..., while

D But, however

E To sum up, to conclude

F For instance
 Aim: to heighten students’ awareness of the importance of
cohesion to the style and clarity of writing

Target Audience: students

Relevance to General Training Writing

IELTS:

Organisation: pairs or individual work

Materials needed: text with many short sentences (e.g. the one below) ;
model text (e.g. the one below) ; an additional text (e.g. the
one below)

1. Give students a text with many short sentences.

2. Ask students to think about how the text could be improved.

3. Ask them to think about how sentences in the text can be linked to make
the text more cohesive.
4. Tell them to reduce the number of sentences, without omitting any
important information from the text.
5. Tell them to compare their text with the model below. Highlight the linking
words: which, for instance, and, though, as, also
6. Ask students to put the linking words into the following categories:

A Giving examples

B Adding information

C Contrasting

D Giving a reason

E Referring back
7. Tell students to try to add more words to each category, e.g. A for example
(e.g.), B moreover, furthermore, etc.
8. Give students another text (e.g. the additional text below) to do in pairs or
alone.

Sample text
 The family is an important institution. We benefit from it in many ways. It
helps to feed us. It helps to clothe us. It helps to educate us. Families can
sometimes be harmful. They can restrict us. They can fail to love us. They
can teach us unhelpful ideas or ways.

Model answer
The family is an important institution which we can benefit from in many
ways. It helps, for instance, to feed and clothe us as well as to educate us.
Families, though, can sometimes be harmful as they can restrict us or fail to
love us. They may also teach us unhelpful ideas or ways.

Additional text
Children these days waste lots of time. They spend hours playing computer
games. They watch television non-stop. They write endless messages to
their friends on the computer. I do not agree with this use of time. It is not
productive. It does not teach them anything about life, its requirements and
values. It is harmful. It teaches them about violence.

When you are ready, have a look at the suggested answer.

Sentence Joining Using Conjunctions - Answers

Other conjunctions:

A Giving examples – for example, e.g.

B Adding information – what’s more, besides

C Contrasting – however, although, but

D Giving a reason – because, since

E Referring back – this

Suggested Answer

Children these days waste lots of time. For example, they spend hours playing
computer games, watching television non-stop or writing endless messages to
their friends on the computer. I do not agree with this use of time as it is not
productive and does not teach them anything about life, its requirements and
values. In fact, it is harmful since it teaches them about violence.
Jigsaw texts

Aim: to encourage students to notice the cohesion and coherence of a text

Relevance to FCE: Reading - whole paper
Organisation: small group or whole class
Materials needed: any text you are working on

1. Prepare your chosen text by dividing it into small sections, if using the whole text, or
sentences, if using just one or two paragraphs. Ideally, you will have one section for each
student in the group or class; between 10 and 15 is ideal.

2. Give each student in the group / class one section of the text. If you don't have an equal
number of students for sections, give the group all of the sections to work on together.
3. Students must put the text together again in the correct order, using both the cohesive
devices and the logical sequence of the text. If you have one section per student, they
are responsible for locating their own section. You may ask them to get into order
physically with their section.
4. Each group, or the whole class, reads out their text. Often it is easier to spot anomalies in
this way. If several groups are working on the same text, 1 group reads out their version
and the others listen and call out when there is a discrepancy with their own version.
Discuss the discrepancy to reach the correct solution.

Spot Checks

Aim: to focus students on cohesive devices in a text

Relevance to FCE: Reading - whole paper
Organisation: whole class
Materials needed: any text you are working on
1. Before doing this activity, you must ensure that your students know what devices are
used to make a text cohere and have had some practice in understanding them.
 2. As you are working on a text, throw out a few questions about the cohesive devices used
in the text. For example:

" Who is 'he' in line X?"

" Can you find a synonym for xxx in line X?"

"Which action happens first, X or Y? How do you know?"

3. Repeat this activity fairly regularly, to maintain your students' focus on cohesion in as light a
way as possible.

www.le.ac.uk/education/

Coherence: Anaphora and reference

last changed 6 Feb 2003

 Back to the main menu

 Open the glossary
 Teaching about anaphora and reference
 Self-assessment on anaphora and reference
 Introduction
 Reference chains
o complex reference chains
 splitting and merging
 bridging
 Where problems arise: anaphora and coherence
 Anaphoric devices:
o pronouns
o definiteness
o ellipsis
 Where is ellipsis possible?
o lexical relationships
o substitution
o apposition
Introduction: coherence, anaphora and reference

This unit is about one of the main aspects of coherence, the quality
of a text that 'hangs together' in terms of its meaning. In a coherent
text it is clear how each part of the text is intended to relate to other
parts. Other aspects of coherence which are discussed elsewhere are:

 the logical links which are indicated by connectives such as

but, when, because, therefore and nevertheless;
 the consistent choice of tense and person.

Anaphora is the name for the relationship between she and Mary in

Mary looked out of the window. The sky looked threatening, so she
decided to take an umbrella.

What the two highlighted words share is the fact that they both refer
to the same person - they have the same reference. The word she
refers back to the word Mary without repeating the name. This
'reference back' is called anaphora. Successful writers keep track of
the various people and things that they mention by building a
reference chain by means of anaphoric devices such as pronouns.
KS3 writers sometimes fail to make these links clear, thus spoiling
the coherence of their writing.

Characters

The part of coherence with which we are concerned here involves

reference: the way in which the text refers to people, places, events
and so on. Let us call all these people and things 'characters'.

For example, in this sentence by a KS3 pupil there are six characters
to which reference is made.

When his grandfather came the atmosphere was as if there were

trees and plants in his bedroom.

 'he' (i.e. the boy described in the poem), referred to by the

word his
 the grandfather, referred to by the phrase his grandfather
 the atmosphere, referred to by the phrase they atmosphere
 trees
 plants
 the bedroom (his bedroom)
After the first reference a character is 'on stage', a continuation of
the drama metaphor.

Reference chains

A simple reference chain tracks a single character through the text.

Usually the first link introduces the character, so this link needs to
provide enough information to distinguish the character from
everything else in the world. This typically requires a full noun
phrase (e.g. the people next door or a large grey cat). Once 'on
stage', however, the character is much easier to identify because it
only needs to be distinguished from the other characters that are
already on stage. Consequently the subsequent links give just
enough information for this, using one of the anaphoric devices
that you can look at in more detail if you wish.

These anaphoric devices are useful because they save effort (e.g.
they is much easier to say, write and understand than the people next
door), but they also avoid potential misunderstanding because we
know that they are not introducing new characters. For example,
consider the effect of repeating a large grey cat:

A large grey cat was lying on the stairs, and I had to step over a
large grey cat.

Is this sentence referring to one cat or two? The sentence is not just
clumsy and long-winded, but the extra words are actually
counterproductive because they make it less clear than it would have
been with a pronoun as the second link:

A large grey cat was lying on the stairs, and I had to step over it.

Here we can be sure that there is only one cat.

Where problems arise: anaphora and coherence

Anaphora is relevant to coherence because it works by linking one

word back to another word which refers to the same character. The
text quoted earlier continues as follows:

He made it sound as if it was outside and not inside. When I read it I

felt as if he was a farmer of some sort. I thought that the boy wanted
him to be there and not to be there.
At least two words in the continuation refer to the grandfather:

 he in he was a farmer
 him in the boy wanted him to be there.

Since the grandfather has already been introduced by his

grandfather, these two pronouns refer back to this phrase, thereby
building a reference chain:

his grandfather ... he ... him

which is held together by anaphora and which extends across four

sentences.

Lack of clarity in these links makes a text incoherent. For

example, it is uncertain whether or not the pronoun he in he made it
sound also refers to the grandfather (it probably refers to the poet);
and the reference of the pronoun it varies between the global
situation (makes it sound as though it was outside) and the poem
(when I read it).

Uncertain reference of pronouns is a common mistake in the writing

of KS3 pupils. For example, in KS3 essays it is common to find a
pronoun that refers back to a character mentioned in the material on
which the essay is based. The first few words of an essay quoted
earlier are:

When his grandfather came,

where his refers back to a character in the poem under discussion

(and possibly to the essay-question). In this case the writer is
treating the essay as a continuation of the text read in class.

At KS3, pupils already know the personal pronoun system well and
apply it in everyday conversation. However the system becomes less
effective as the number of similar characters on stage increases. For
example, in the following text there are numerous references to
Benjamin, which are highlighted:

Benjamin seemed frightend when he seen the plane. Is uncle tried

to foreds [force?] him. Lewis seem very surprise to see the planes.
Benjemin seemed scared to sign when Alex said if we land in a
farmer's felid and kill some old farmer's cow. He was afrided he
could land in his farm and kill is cattle. ones he sign they went in
the plane ones up in the air he seemed to forget he was in the plane.
As long as he is the only character on stage, Benjamin can be
referred to safely by he and [h]is. Even after the uncle has been
introduced, him refers unambiguously to Benjamin because in this
position in the clause the only way to refer to the pronoun is by
using himself - a reflexive pronoun. When Lewis is introduced the
writer (correctly) reverts to Benjamin's name in order to avoid
confusion.

However by the time we have reached the sentence He was afraid, a

third character (Alex) is on stage, so it might have been better to use
Benjamin's name again instead of the pronoun. In this sentence
another character is also introduced (a farmer), so it is in fact quite
unclear whether his field and [h]is cattle) refer to this farmer's field
and cattle, or to Benjamin's.

More generally, then, personal pronouns work well as long as there

is only one potential 'target' among the characters on stage. When
this is not true, the writer has to take care that the reference is
clear. Often the writer has to balance this risk of confusion against
the simplicity of the pronoun, and an inexperienced writer may
underestimate the danger (or the work required of the reader).

Anaphoric devices

Pronouns in anaphora and reference

Pronouns are far and away the most commonly used word classes to
create reference chains. A lack of clarity in the reference of
pronouns is also the most common mistake in this area found in the
writing of KS3 pupils, who often appear to assume, because they
know in their own minds who him or her or his or it refers to, that
the reader must know too.

The most common kind of reference chain has personal pronouns

for all the links except the first:

Once upon a time there was an old woman who had a lazy son. She
was forever scolding him, but it made no difference - he spent all his
time lying in the sunshine, ignoring her. His main job was to look
after her goats, but he preferred to sleep in the sun.

The two chains in this text are as follows:

an old woman - she - her - her

a lazy son - him - he - his - his - he

The creation of reference chains here is relatively easy, since there

are only two characters mentioned and one is female and the other is
male.

Third-person pronouns are normally reserved for non-initial links,

but first-person and second-person pronouns may even be the first
link because it is nearly always clear who they refer to (i.e. the
speaker and the person addressed):

Hello, how are you? I'm so pleased to see you. How long is it since
we last met? Didn't you ring me about six months ago? ....

Even third-person pronouns can occasionally be used as the first

link, provided that the person concerned is easy to identify from the
context; e.g. if Bill often calls for his friend Ben, "Is he in?" may be
sufficient to identify Ben.

The use of a third person pronoun as first link is also a common

literary device in narrative, as it forces the reader to engage actively
with the text by guessing who the characters are, as in this example
from the opening sentence of the narrative of George Eliot’s novel
Daniel Deronda:

Was she beautiful or not beautiful? and what was the secret of form
or expression which gave the dynamic quality to her glance?

Pronouns are not the only anaphoric device that is available. The
same text illustrates three others.

Benjamin seemed frightend when he seen the plane. Is uncle tried to

foreds [force?] him. Lewis seem very surprise to see the planes.
Benjemin seemed scared to sign when Alex said if we land in a
farmer's felid and kill some old farmer's cow. He was afrided he
could land in his farm and kill is cattle. ones he sign they went in
the plane ones up in the air he seemed to forget he was in the plane.

 definiteness (the plane, the planes)

 ellipsis (tried to foreds him)
 lexical relationships (Benjamin…Benjemin…He)
In addition to these devices we can include two more which are not
found in this text.

 substitution (e.g. He may be late. If so we shall miss the

bus.)
 apposition (e.g. Benjamin, an elderly farmer)

KS3 pupils rarely use the last four devices in writing, though they
often meet them in their reading.

All the reference chains discussed so far were simple, in the sense
that they tracked a single character. Complex reference chains are
also important at KS3.

Definiteness in anaphora and reference

The definite article the is generally used to indicate that the

character referred to is already on stage, or at least known to the
reader, in contrast with the indefinite articles a and some, which
signal the introduction of a new character:

Once upon a time there was an old woman who had a lazy daughter.
The woman used to scold the daughter all day long.

These articles allow a reference chain to be built, without confusion,

out of full noun phrases:

an old woman ... the woman ...

a lazy daughter ... the daughter ...

If the first link in a text contains a definite article, this is often

because the reference chain in fact extends back to a previous text:

Benjamin seemed frightend when he seen the plane.

This is the first sentence of the sample text, and the refers back to
the passage on which the questions are based.

Although the definite and indefinite articles are generally used

effectively in conversation, the special demands of writing may
produce problems for KS3 pupils. The sample text contains an
example:

Benjemin seemed scared to sign when Alex said if we land in a

farmer's felid and kill some old farmer's cow.

Are the farmers intended to be the same or different? The use of the
indefinite some suggests that the second farmer is a different person
from the first, but the context suggests otherwise. Presumably the
intended meaning calls for the following:

Benjemin seemed scared to sign when Alex said if we land in some

old farmer's felid and kill his cow.

Proper nouns are also definite in the sense that they are only
suitable when the reader already knows the character referred to; so
Benjamin means 'the person called Benjamin', rather than 'a person
called Benjamin'. It is unhelpful to use a proper name when the
reader does not know the person concerned.

To summarise, a noun phrase is definite if it contains a definite

determiner (e.g. the/this plane) or a proper noun (e.g. Benjamin).
This definiteness tells the reader to look for a character that is
already known for one of two reasons:

 because the character concerned is part of the reader's

general knowledge (e.g. the head teacher, the school), or
 because the character is currently on stage.

In the second case the definite noun phrase normally refers back to
an earlier noun phrase. Since the two noun phrases refer to the same
character they are often built round the same noun and may even be
identical - e.g. the plane ... the plane. However this does not have to
be so, and varying the noun is an important way to make writing
more interesting and informative. For example, since plane is a
synonym of machine, the second the plane could be replaced by the
machine. KS3 writers should learn to exploit such lexical
relationships.

Lexical relationships in anaphora and reference

If a later noun phrase refers to the same character as an earlier one,

its head noun must obviously fit this character; for example, the
man could refer back to Benjamin but the plane could not. Equally
obviously, the simplest way to make sure that the two noun phrases
are compatible is to give them exactly the same head noun:

Benjamin and Lewis went for a flight. Benjamin hated it but Lewis
loved it.
Once upon a time an old man and an old woman owned two cows.
The man took them to pasture every day, while the woman turned
their milk into butter.

In some cases simple repetition is effective, but it quickly becomes

monotonous if the chain is extended. Unless it is clearly intentional,
it also gives the impression - rightly or wrongly - of a limited
vocabulary. An alternative is to replace the earlier noun by a
(rough) synonym whose meaning may be either broader or narrower
than that of the word replaced:

Once upon a time an old king was very ill. The old man sent for his
councillors. When they came before him, their ruler told them that
he wanted to divide his kingdom.

Another kind of lexical relationship is provided by word families,

which allow words of different classes to be linked to each other.
For example, a noun may belong to the same family as a verb, so the
two can belong to a single reference chain.

The king won an important battle. His victory made him the most
powerful person in the whole country - indeed his power was
greater than that of any ruler before him.

In this passage won and victory are lexically related as members of

the same word family, and so are powerful and power.

Ellipsis in anaphora and reference

Ellipsis is the omission of words which can be recovered

('understood') from the context. For example, in the sample text we
find:

Is uncle tried to foreds [force?] him.

In this sentence the ellipsis involves the infinitive which we expect

after force (as in He forced us to work harder). In this example the
ellipsis is unsuccessful because there is nothing for it to refer back
to (force him to do what?), but ellipsis can be very effective in both
providing an anaphoric link and also reducing the number of words.
Here is a typical example:

They didn't want to go into the water, and he didn't force them .

In this sentence the ellipsis has removed the words to go into the
water after force.

When is ellipsis possible?

Substitution

English has a few words other than pronouns which can be

substituted for other words, phrases or clauses. The most obvious
examples are yes and no, as in:

Do you love me? Yes.

It is very clear that the meaning of yes is based on anaphora, in the

sense that it refers back to a preceding item in the text - in this case,
the sentence Do you love me? This is a very efficient example of
anaphora: one word expresses the meaning of a whole sentence.

The main words that can be used in substitution are as follows:

 the 'pro-sentences' yes and no.

 the 'pro-clauses' so and not
o I think so/not.
o If so/not, ...
 the adverbs so and nor
o I liked it, and so did John.
o Mary didn't like it, and nor did Jane;
o I ate it, and John did so too.
 the main verb intransitive do
o Will it rain? It may do.
 the common noun one
o I've got a pet goldfish, and my brother's got one too.
 the adjective such, meaning 'like that'
o Yesterday he was mugged. Fortunately such things
are rare in his life.

Apposition in anaphora and reference

Apposition is the traditional name for a very short reference chain in

which two words or phrases that have the same reference are simply
put next to each other within the same sentence.

his brother + Benjamin = his brother Benjamin

the two brothers, Benjamin and Lewis

Benjamin, an elderly farmer who was afraid of flying

Notice that unlike other reference chains, the second member does
not need to be definite.

An apposition can usually be expanded by turning the second

member into a relative clause who is/was ...:

his brother, who was Benjamin

Benjamin, who was an elderly farmer who was afraid of flying

Some appositions can also be expanded by adding the abbreviation

i.e.:

his brother, i.e. Benjamin,

the two brothers, i.e. Benjamin and Lewis,

A discussion of apposition would provide a good opportunity for

teaching the difference between i.e (or that is) and e.g. (or for
example or for instance):

Strictly speaking apposition does not contribute to textual coherence

because it is only found within single sentences, but it is so similar
to the other patterns that we have been considering that it cannot be
left out of the discussion. It is also particularly important for KS3
writers as this seems to be the stage when stronger writers start to
use it.

To help students overcome the above problems, I have designed and used a series of exercises on content
lexical ties which have proved helpful. Based on my observation and students’ feedback, the exercises
increased students’ vocabulary and helped them understand better the vocabulary being studied. This is
because the exercises enabled students to learn the words in context or in relation to one another as
synonyms, antonyms, superordinates, or hyponyms. Also, a better understanding of these words allowed
students to use them to improve cohesion in their writing, hence enhancing their writing skills. The exercises
are of three major types:

1) finding synonyms, antonyms, superordinates, and hyponyms, or classifying words into these categories;
2) identifying content lexical ties or the lack of them in writing; and 3) creating lexical cohesive ties. Although
these exercises can be conducted individually, pair or group work is preferable.

A. Finding/classifying synonyms, antonyms, and so forth

This type of exercise does not require complex preparation by the teacher. The teacher may simply ask
students to find synonyms or antonyms for a given word, find hyponyms for a superordinate, or determine
the superordinate for a series of hyponyms. Classifying words is also an easy-to-construct exercise. The
teacher may give students a fairly large number of words—either all known words or some known and some
new words—and have them use various diagrams to classify and arrange the words either as synonyms,
antonyms, or superordinates/ hyponyms. The teacher may or may not allow the students to use dictionaries
in completing the exercise. Here are a few samples of identification and classification exercises:

Example 1: Find the superordinate for the following words: Exercises, term paper, book report, composition,
research project, lab work, reading (school assignments or school work).

Example 2: Find the (situational) hyponyms (i.e., related words) for the word program (a teaching or learning
program).

Example 3: Classify the following words into synonyms/antonyms: difficult, straightforward, obvious,
puzzling, perplexing, clear, confusing, bewildering, simple, hard, easy, lucid, enigmatic.

B. Identifying content lexical ties (including text-structuring words) or the lack of

them in writing

In this exercise students either identify content lexical cohesive ties in written passages (may be as short as
one or two sentences) or determine the lack of such ties in writing. The best examples may come from your
students’ writing. Such exercises call for the students to read the passage very closely and have some
familiarity with the various types of lexical cohesive ties. This exercise is best conducted during students’
peer critiques in writing when the teacher can have students identify the use of or lack of content lexical ties
in each other’s papers, discuss them, and make suggestions for improvement.

C. Creating lexical cohesive ties

This type of exercise directly helps students to develop the ability to create or use content lexical cohesive
ties in their writing. It can be carried out in a variety of forms and be tailored for students at different levels.
Here are a few examples.

Example 1: Using superordinates and hyponyms:

Give students a picture or a series of pictures and have them provide a coherent description of what they
see. For example, for a beginning level class, show them a picture of a living room. Then ask them to depict
it in writing by starting with the superordinate furniture and moving on to its hyponyms, sofa, chairs, coffee
table, entertainment center, and so forth. For a more advanced class, give students a picture/diagram of the
White House, Capitol Hill, and the Supreme Court, and have them describe the United States government.
In both examples, students have to come up with appropriate content lexical items that may serve as
cohesive devices for their description.

Example 2: Using synonyms/antonyms/ repetitions:

Ask students to write short paragraphs or essays by using the lexical items in question to strengthen the
cohesion. For example, have them write an essay on “troubles in English” in which they have to use a series
of synonyms for the word trouble, such as difficulty, problem, and headache. This activity is most appropriate
for intermediate students.

Example 3: Using text-structuring words:

Give students a lead sentence that contains a text-structuring word, and have them lexicalize the word. For
example, “John had a good reason not to attend the meeting….” Have students write a passage in which
they will have to use and lexicalize one or two text-structuring words provided for them, such as merit, idea,
convincing. All levels of students benefit from this activity.
 Writing is frequently the most difficult skill for both native and non-native speakers,
Chinese EFL learners being no exception. In recent years research into student writing
shows that one of the major problems is the lack of coherence in the flow of ideas
through a composition (Guo & Wang, 2005; Mao, 2002). In order to address this
problem, teachers need to place importance upon formulating measures to improve the
textual coherence of their students’ compositions.