The Effect of Consciousness- Raising Tasks on Improving Algerian EFL Students’ Use of Discourse Markers in Speaking

Authors

  • Mrs. Siham Bouzar Mrs Siham BOUZAR, Assistant Lecturer, University of Algiers2, Algeria.

Keywords:

Discourse markers, Awareness-raising, Speaking skills.

Abstract

The investigation described in this dissertation aims at studying some aspects of spoken discourse which are discourse markers, and will consider in particular the production of those devices by EFL students of English as well as the effect of consciousness-raising tasks on improving discourse competence and communicative language performance of non-native speakers of English in Algeria. In this context a quasi experimental research was adopted consisting of two groups of twenty (20) Algerian students each belonging to first year English LMD: one constitutes the experimental group while the other represents the control one. Theexperiment was conducted in three phases during which three techniques were adopted in the collection of the required data; i.e. we employed two written tests (a pre- test and a post- test), two interviews (from which we derived student corpora) and a questionnaire. The study reveals some development in the students’ discourse competence as far as the use of spoken discourse markers is concerned; nevertheless, a discrepancy is noticed in the frequency and use of those targeted features when compared with a subcorpus of native speakers’ talks containing 460,050 words, already employed by the author [15], selected from the whole CANCODE pedagogical corpus. Moreover, the investigation unveiled that some discourse markers were overused or underused whereas others were misused or not used at all.

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Published

2016-07-22

How to Cite

Bouzar, M. S. (2016). The Effect of Consciousness- Raising Tasks on Improving Algerian EFL Students’ Use of Discourse Markers in Speaking. American Scientific Research Journal for Engineering, Technology, and Sciences, 22(1), 138–152. Retrieved from https://asrjetsjournal.org/index.php/American_Scientific_Journal/article/view/1774

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