THE EFFECT OF MODEL-ESSAY AID TO DIRECT CORRECTIVE FEEDBACKON EFL LEARNERS᾽ USE OF META-DISCOURSE MARKERSIN WRITING

Meta-discourse markers (henceforth MDMs) like street signs are a good way to show the reader how ideas in a sentence are connected; whether the writer is adding to or explaining the previous ideas or going to a new or opposite direction or giving examples or so on. Teaching English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners how to use MDMs properly is one of the highlights of an essay writing class. So the current study tried to know if the kind of feedback which teachers give to students? writing can have more effective impact on the proper use of MDMs. In other words, the attempts have been done to investigate if there was a difference in the appropriate application of MDMs in writing comparison-contrast essays between corrective feedback and model-essay feedback. To this aim two groups of lower-intermediate EFL students, in writing module, were selected. To the treatment group oral instructor-student-conference direct corrective feedback to students’ composition skill and MDM errors was given with reference to a model essay. The control group was carried out the same way without reference to any model essay. Finally, both groups were asked to write two comparison-contrast essays as an exam and a chi-square was applied. The result showed that treatment group performed more effectively in proper use of MDMs in their writing. So, one of the implications of the study could be in TEFL in practice, to offer an enhancing method to writing instructors for more efficacious teaching MDMs in writing comparison-contrast essays to EFL learners.